Summer of the Redeemers (18 page)

“Hate to interrupt your work, but it would appear Miss Welford went to a lot of trouble to look nice for you. I thought you might want to see her before she cleans the stalls. I don’t imagine she’ll look the same afterward.” Nadine’s drawl was longer than necessary.

“Too bad to see such a pretty girl get all dirty,” Greg said slowly. “Such a pretty dress too.”

He was looking straight down Jamey’s bosom. She sort of squeezed her arms to her sides so that her breasts looked larger. I wanted to groan out loud.

“Well, Jamey has to learn to dress to work in a barn.”

“She could take that pretty dress off,” Greg suggested. “In this hot weather it’s easier to work without a shirt.”

I remembered his whipcord-thin body and the sweat—and the lashes across his back. Jamey Louise giggled.

“You young folks better behave. Y’all start taking your clothes off in my barn, and I’ll get a bad reputation. Greg, those church people of yours will be comin’ down here and accusing me of all sorts of evil things.”

Whatever Nadine believed, she wasn’t worried one whit about the church people. Nadine didn’t give one flying damn what anybody thought about her. She’d told me that herself.

“You can be our baby-sitter, Miss Nadine,” Greg said. He laughed and he sounded more grown-up than when he talked. “The one you got to be worried about is Miss Bekkah Rich. She’ll run home and tattle to her mama if she thinks there’s a whiff of fun going on around here.”

“I don’t tattle,” I said stiffly. I didn’t know why he had to turn the conversation around on me, except maybe to impress Jamey Louise. And it was working.

“Miss Effie hardly trusts Bekkah to take a bath alone. She’s afraid she’ll drown in the bath water.” Jamey laughed. “Bekkah’s a titty-baby.”

“Is that so?” Greg hung out a little farther from the loft. “Her mouth ain’t deformed. Least not yet.”

Even Nadine laughed. Jamey Louise would pay dearly for her comments.
She thought she was such a little charmer. I put Cammie away and got the pitchfork and wheelbarrow from the end of the hall. Nadine had Napoleon tacked up, and she left us to our own devices in the barn. I set to work shoveling, ignoring Jamey and Greg. They were talking at the far end of the barn, where Greg had come partway down the ladder. Jamey Louise had her hand on a wooden rung, and her arms squeezed tight to her sides again.

“Don’t get a hernia, Bekkah,” she called. “I don’t want any riding lesson, so you can have it.”

“You’d better get to work.” I kept the rhythm of my shoveling. The stalls weren’t that dirty. There were fresh shavings in them and clean hay.

“Shovel horse poo? You’ve got to be kidding. Greg’s going to help me, aren’t you, Greg?”

She spoke with such persuasion in her voice it made me almost retch.

“And what are you going to give Greg in return, Jamey Louise? What do you have that someone else hasn’t already sampled?” I knew the words were vicious, but they weren’t any worse than what she’d said, at least not in my opinion.

I was rewarded with a loud burst of laughter from Greg and the sharp sound of a palm meeting naked skin. Whether she’d slapped him on the chest or the face, I didn’t know or care. I only hoped it had been enough to keep him from doing her chores. I moved down to the next stall, where Caesar stayed. He was a big bay gelding with two white stockings. Really magnificent and the most expensive of all the horses. There was something wrong with one of his feet, but Nadine had said it wasn’t serious.

When I took a pause from the constant lifting of the pitchfork, Jamey was standing at the stall door. “Greg said you and Alice were down at the creek today.”

“I’ve been taking a riding lesson, and I’m about to get another one because you aren’t doing your work.”

“He saw you. Both of you.”

“Good for Greg. Why doesn’t he file a police report?”

“You’d better stay away from down there, Bekkah. They don’t like you, and they don’t want you there. Everybody on Kali Oka Road knows you and your family are trouble.”

“Like everybody knows you and your sisters are whores?” I hated to drag Libby and Cora in on the brawl, but Jamey was aiming at my whole family. Fair was fair. Her face went white with fury.

“Just remember, before you pop a gut, you started this, Jamey. I’m just going to finish it.” I heaved another forkful of manure at the barrel. My aim was off a bit, and a small turd hit Jamey in the arm.

“Sorry.” I couldn’t hide my smile. “Maybe you’d better stand back. I’m trying to work.”

Jamey looked at the stain on her arm. She whirled around and marched down the barn aisle toward the water hose. I was tempted to lob another forkful of manure at her, but I didn’t want to mess up the aisle.

“Nice shot,” Greg said. He was up in the loft just above my stall. “Thanks.” I was burning to ask him what they’d buried that morning.

“Your friend is cute. Why does she always have that baby?” “It’s her sister. Alice has to take care of her. Mrs. Waltman’s expecting again and she can’t take care of Maebelle.”

“Well, she’s a cute girl. I like blondes.”

“I’ll tell her. I’m sure it’ll make her day.”

Greg chuckled softly. “You don’t like us, Bekkah, but you can’t leave us alone. You’d better be careful what you come down to the end of the road to see. You might see something you don’t want to.”

“How’s the girl who sings?” I couldn’t help it. “She has a pretty voice.”

“Yeah, she does. Magdeline has a lot of pretty parts about her. And—”

“They didn’t hurt her, did they?”

He stopped talking.

“I’m not going to tell anybody. I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t really hurt.”

“What you know and what you think you know are two different things. Stay away from the church. That’s for your sake and Maggie’s. If they had any idea she was talking to you—”

“She hasn’t. She hasn’t talked to me or anyone else.”

“Stay away, and keep your friend and that baby away from there.”

He went back to his work in the loft, the sound of the pitchfork turning the hay again and again with a brute frenzy. I finished HiJinx’s
stall and moved down the line to Heathcliff. I had some thinking to do. For the first time Greg had sounded concerned, as if he was worried something would happen to me and Alice if we went back down there. All of my deepest suspicions were roused again. Maybe Alice and I would have to go to the cemetery and try to dig up that fetus they had buried. That would be enough proof to get the sheriff and the FBI down there to save Magdeline. And maybe even Greg.

Seventeen

T
WO
weeks passed and I didn’t see Alice a single time. None of the Waltmans attended the Sweet Water Methodist Church Fourth of July Dinner on the Ground, even though Alice and I were supposed to sing a duet together. It was an omen that fretted me. Alice’s older sister, Sukey, played the piano for the church, and she never missed an event at the old white clapboard. Sukey was planning on being a missionary to Peru, and she was going “to take the word of God through music to the savages of the rain forest.”

I wasn’t real certain the rain forest savages were going to like the way Sukey intended to introduce them to Christian music. She pounded down on hymns like “He Lives” and “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Taken from the viewpoint of a savage, those songs might be sort of scary, especially with Sukey, her curly red hair wired in every direction, striking the piano like she meant to bust it apart.

Since Sukey wasn’t there, Miss Ethel Scarborough played, but she lacked the fervor of the young Miss Waltman. That cut me out too. Without Alice, who could really sing, I wasn’t willing to do it by myself. No one pressed me very hard either. The truth was, the dinner wasn’t much to enjoy without Alice to talk to. Jamey Louise was noticeably absent also. I knew where she was, lurking around the barn and Greg. Not even the sumptuous foods at the dinner could tempt her away from Greg, and I avoided her mama and daddy for all I was worth. I didn’t want to be answering any questions about how I liked working with Jamey Louise. Nadine’s edict about gossip was still in
effect, and I didn’t want to be banished for having a loose tongue. Besides, Jamey Louise was keeping her mouth shut tight about my jumping Cammie. As long as she kept quiet, I would too. Mama Betts would say it was a pact made with the devil, and I’d probably have to agree with her.

Effie and Mama Betts and I ate watermelon and homemade peach ice cream and pound cake and potato salad and Mrs. Spooner’s pickled okra and fried chicken and enough other things until we were stretched out on the ground under a big oak tree. The late afternoon sun beat down hard on the church grounds until even the little children were tired enough to sit and listen to different ones of the congregation sing and talk. Several of our neighbors dropped by and visited with Mama Betts and Effie. I caught a glimpse or two of Arly’s friends on the fringes of the crowd. He was spoonin’ with one of the Carpenter girls. I think it was Rosie, but I couldn’t be certain. Talk around school last year was that Rosie was the best kisser in Chickasaw County. Leave it to Arly to follow the scent.

The day wound down to an end, and when the boys lit the fireworks and set the dusky sky on fire I realized with a bump that summer was half over. School would start the last week of August. I’d be in the seventh grade.

Riding back home in the velvety night with the car windows down, Mama warned me that when school started up I was going to have to wear a brassiere, whether I needed one or not. She said we’d go to the Dale Shop the next Saturday and get fitted. That took what little magic there had been out of the night.

I rode my bicycle down to Cry Baby Creek several times during those two weeks, and I even hid an old shovel down there so I could dig up whatever had been buried in the cemetery. Picket and I hunkered down in the creek bed and spied on the Redeemers, but there was never a time when no one was about long enough for me to rush across the creek and dig. Nothing was happening that I could tell. Women walked along by themselves or with other women. The men were invisible. They stayed indoors, it seemed. And the five Redeemer boys came and went, but they always looked as if they were doing something important. At the barn, Greg refused to talk about the Redeemers at all, not even when Nadine teased him about worshiping Satan and other strange rituals.

Daddy did talk with Effie, and it was agreed that I could work at Nadine’s barn for riding lessons. It was all settled with a lot less commotion than I’d ever thought possible. Daddy had to finish out his contract in Missouri, but he was home every two weeks for three or four days. Effie was trying really hard to make life easy for Daddy. I know he never told her how close he came to staying in Missouri. He didn’t have to tell her. Both she and Mama Betts seemed to know. In the kitchen when they were cooking, Mama Betts would say something about Daddy’s favorite dessert being apple pie, and that would be exactly what Effie had planned to make. That glance would pass between them, and the rolling pin would be put in the refrigerator to chill.

I got a card from Cathi Cummings, and I didn’t show it to Effie. Or to anyone else since I wasn’t talking with Alice. It was a cartoon card about dog days in summer and how she wished I’d come back to Missouri. She said she missed her horseback riding partner, and that made me feel good. She said that she was looking out for Daddy for me while he was still in Missouri and that she was going to miss him a lot when he came home to us.

That was the part that made me hide the note from Effie. I’d given it a lot of serious thought, and I didn’t believe Daddy and Cathi were fornicating. I think she wanted to, and maybe him too. But I don’t believe it ever happened. If it had, they would have said they were in love, or something like that. But instead of being all cow-eyed at each other, Cathi always had that look of sadness whenever she looked at Daddy, like he was something she wanted but couldn’t have. And The Judge just wasn’t the kind of man who did the sort of thing that required sneaking around and lying.

It was hard not to think about fornicating when Jamey Louise was in heat every day. Working at the barn each morning, I was getting a real education about teasing boys. She kept Greg on a slow sizzle. Nadine was right about one thing: Jamey Louise knew how to work when the payoff was time alone with Greg. Since she wasn’t interested in riding, she flew through her chores and was sitting like a cat at a milk saucer when Greg finished his. Then they’d disappear up in the loft and spend the next hour or so giggling until Greg had to go back to the church. He had a job there, too, but he wouldn’t tell us what it was. Jamey didn’t bother to talk to me at all, unless she wanted to trade some chore for another so she could be around Greg more.

Cammie and I were becoming a real team. I’d fallen off twice, but it had only been a few scrapes and bruises, and I’d taken great care to hide them from Effie. If she saw any marks on my body, she’d have a fit and demand that I stop riding. One time the stirrup leather broke over a jump, and I fell into the jump standard, and another, Cammie spooked when one of the cats leapt off the roof and startled us both.

We were getting good, though. We were going over two-nine jumps, and Nadine said I’d be ready to show over three-foot fences by September if Effie would buy me the boots, a hard hat, and jacket. I hadn’t asked her yet, because I was afraid if she knew I was jumping at all, she’d make me stop going to the barn. It was a hard situation because more than anything I wanted to tell her. I wanted her to come and see me and be proud. But she’d just be frightened.

Nadine said she wasn’t going away for the fall circuit this year. She was tired and wanted to stay put on Kali Oka, so if Effie would spring for the riding gear, she’d take me and Cammie to the local shows in Mobile. It was more than I’d ever dreamed of, and I began plotting ways to get the boots and jacket. There were times I did Jamey Louise’s chores and she gave me what little bit of pay Nadine gave her.

A routine of sorts began to build around my days, but there was a big hole in it named Alice. The barn kept me busy until lunch, and then Mama Betts always had a few chores for me to do. But by three o’clock I was always finished. From then until bedtime I hardly went five minutes without thinking of Alice. Mama Betts asked where she was, and I said she was too busy to play with me.

“She’s too busy, and you’re too stubborn to apologize,” she said.

“What have I done to apologize for?” I asked her back.

“I don’t know, but it must be something. I know you, Bekkah Rich, and you’ve hurt Alice’s feelings or she’d be over here.”

I stormed out of the kitchen, but it didn’t take away the sting of the truth. It took me two weeks to decide to offer an apology, and by that time I wasn’t certain she’d accept.

Jamey Louise hadn’t spent any time with her, and though I couldn’t prove it, I suspected Jamey had snubbed her good. Jamey had Greg. She’d never wanted to be Alice’s friend, she’d just wanted someone to help her catch Greg’s eye.

Picket and I took the path through the woods. We stopped for a while at the spring. I’d kind of hoped Alice might be there, where we could meet on neutral ground. But even though I dawdled for a good fifteen minutes, there wasn’t a sign of her. We walked on toward her house, stopping at the edge of the woods. She was sitting in the swing with Maebelle V. in her lap. The baby had grown two inches and a good five pounds. Maybe all that jostling around in the bicycle basket had been stunting her growth.

Picket bounded forward and barked a greeting at Alice. I’d hoped to be a little more dignified, but my plan was lost when she turned around and saw me.

“I’m sorry I left you at the creek with the baby.” I wanted to go closer, but I was afraid she’d tell me to leave. To make it worse, I thought I might cry.

“We made it home okay,” Alice said. “It didn’t matter.”

“I felt like you’d taken up with Jamey Louise. It made me feel left out that you were telling her all of our secrets.”

Alice slipped out of the swing. Holding Maebelle V. on her shoulder, she walked toward me. “I didn’t tell her anything, Bekkah. You never gave me a chance to explain.”

“I didn’t know if you’d come back from Missouri. I wasn’t certain you wanted to come back here. Maybe me and Kali Oka Road weren’t enough anymore. You’re going to go away one day. Maybe it was going to be this summer.”

The truth of what she said stopped me from saying anything at all. I hadn’t wanted to come back, not completely. A part of me wanted to go, to see things I’d never seen before. One day I would leave. I’d be going to a university like those people in Missouri. I’d be sitting in a room with people from all over the place. The Judge expected it of me.

And Alice would not.

“I hate this summer,” I said. “Why does everything have to hurt?”

“What’s it like working with Greg and Jamey?” Alice’s smile was tentative. There wasn’t any apology to make right what had gone wrong. The only thing we could do was keep going, either as friends or not. I wanted to be her friend more than anything, except maybe riding Cammie.

“They smooch all the time, but you can’t tell anyone.” Alice hefted Maebelle V. a little higher in her arms, and I whistled for Picket as we walked back to the spring. I had a lot of gossip to tell Alice, and it wouldn’t be breaking Nadine’s rules, because Alice wouldn’t tell a soul.