Summer of the Redeemers (37 page)

I knew I should get out of the house. It didn’t make sense to stand around, staring at nothing important. I only needed a few seconds to breathe, to think and try to get over the scare I’d given myself.

Through the open back door I heard the sound of the old sign singing on its chains. I hated that sound. I knew what it was and it still made my heart thump painfully. It’s
just the wind,
Bekkah. The Judge was talking to me again. Just the wind, I assured him back.

The hair on my scalp prickled just before I felt strong fingers grasp the nape of my neck.

Thirty-three

F
IND
something interesting?”

I heard Nadine’s question above the loud scream I let loose. Her strong fingers clamped around the back of my neck, and she shook me hard.

“Hey! Bekkah!” She shook me again. “Bekkah! It’s me!”

By the time I made myself look at her, there was amusement glittering in the depths of her dark eyes.

“If you’re not careful, you’re going to have to clean your pants,” she said, taking her hand off my neck.

My fingers automatically went there, rubbing where she’d dug into me.

“I only meant to startle you,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “I didn’t intend to give you a coronary. The way you were jumping around, I thought I was going to break your neck.”

I still couldn’t talk. The words were choked in my throat, blocked by another scream that wanted out but wasn’t needed. I swallowed hard. “You scared the shit out of me.” It was part accusation.

“So I noticed.” She grinned. “Jamey Louise always insisted you were real spooky. She had some really mean schemes worked out to get you.”

Her attitude angered me. “I thought Greg was dead.”

Her eyes flickered. “Oh, really?”

“I thought the Redeemers had come in here and killed him and you both.”

“So you took the opportunity to turn all the horses out, even though I expressly told you they weren’t to go out.”

All amusement was gone from her face. Beneath the cold glitter of her eyes I saw anger. She’d had the fun of scaring me, now she was ready to attack.

“They were kicking their stalls. Bacchus tried to bite me. It won’t hurt them to be out.”

Nadine took a step toward me, and the look on her face made me back up a step.

“You’re an authority on horses now?”

“They’re out there grazing, just like they should be. What harm has it done?”

“Maybe none, this time.” Her eyes narrowed. “The trouble is that you disobeyed me. Deliberately. Now I don’t think I can trust you with the horses anymore.”

“I stayed right here to watch them. I was going to put them back up before I left. I would never have left them alone.”

“And if one got in the fence, could you cut it out? Where are the wire cutters, Bekkah? Would you have had the nerve to come in here and get the gun and put an injured animal out of its misery?”

“The wire cutters are in the tool box in the tack room.”

“Can you use them?”

“Yes.” I’d cut wire before when Arly and Alice and I had built our secret fort in the woods.

“And the gun? Could you put it against the horse’s temple and pull the trigger?”

I thought of Caesar. My gaze wavered and I looked down at the floor.

“I thought not.” Nadine’s voice was nasty. “Before you’re so willing to risk an animal, you might think about the responsibility you’re taking on.”

“Nadine, I just let them out in the pasture. They should be allowed to graze. Mama Betts said—” I stopped. Nadine was looking at me with a glow in her eyes. They were amber, not brown.

“So now your grandmother is a trainer. She knows all about show horses and how to care for them. Maybe she’d like to come down here and teach me the proper way to manage my barn.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“Since your grandmother is so smart, why don’t you go home and let her teach you to ride?”

“Nadine, I—”

“Get off my property. Get that cur dog of yours and get off my land. Those horses will be worthless to show. Their coats will be bleached and ruined, and all because of you!”

“Nadine, if you’ll let me—”

“Now, Bekkah. Go now before I get even madder.”

“What about Greg?”

“You lost your right to ask questions when you violated my trust. You’re a spoiled brat. Get out of my sight.”

Words raged around in my head, but I couldn’t force them out my mouth. I wanted to tell her that she was mean and cruel and liked to frighten people. That she had more than a little of the bully in her. I wanted to tell her that she was a pig living in filth and wallowing in nastiness. But I said nothing as I marched to the end of the driveway and called Picket to come home with me. I didn’t turn around and look back into the pasture. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Cammie, and I knew Nadine would never relent and allow me to tell her goodbye.

About halfway home I stopped fighting and let the tears go. I’d known Nadine would be mad about the horses. I knew it and I’d done it anyway. Because they needed to get out. I could see that. I hadn’t meant to defy Nadine, I’d only tried to help the horses.

I didn’t want to go home and I didn’t want to go to Alice’s. I turned down our drive and headed for my old swing. I’d been there about fifteen minutes when Mama Betts came out of the house with a load of laundry. She’d already washed and hung up one load.

“Bekkah?”

She sounded like she didn’t believe I was there. I tried to wipe the evidence of tears off my face, but I knew my eyes were swollen and my breathing ragged.

“Ma’am?”

She put the laundry basket down on the ground. “Come into the house. We need to have a talk.”

I was too numbed to even think about what I’d done wrong now. I followed her into the kitchen and took my seat.

“Something happen at the barn?” she asked, but there wasn’t a lot of sympathy in her voice. Something was really wrong.

“I turned the horses out in the pasture, and Nadine told me not to ever come back.”

Mama Betts studied my face. Her fingers drummed on the table. “I was going through some dirty clothes in your room. When I shook out the pockets of your shorts, this fell out.” She reached into her apron pocket and put the tiny red pill on the table. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did it get in your pocket?”

She was acting like it was arsenic or something. “I got it at Nadine’s. I knocked her pill bottle over, and when I picked them up I put one in my pocket, for Greg.”

“Greg takes these pills?”

I shook my head. “I thought it might help him, but I forgot to tell Nadine that I had it. I knew it was medicine and I thought it might help.”

Mama Betts’ hands trembled. “Bekkah, this is a prescription drug. It’s very potent and very dangerous. To make someone sleep. It isn’t to be played with. I called Mr. Hartz down at the drugstore, and he told me what it was. Taken wrong, this medicine could kill a healthy person.”

I nodded. “But no one took any.”

“You shouldn’t have had this in your pocket. Mrs. Andrews should keep her medicines out of the way.”

“It wasn’t her fault. I went to get the flashlight and knocked the pills over. I was scared for Greg. I took one thinking it might fight infection, and then I forgot I had it.”

Mama Betts nodded. “It’s just as well she’s put you off her property.” Her face softened. “But I’m sorry for those horses. If she doesn’t let them be horses, she’s going to pay a terrible price.”

I thought of Cammie, and I felt the tears freshen again. Nadine would leave her in a stall all the time. There’d be no one to ride her, and it was all my fault for disobeying.

“Maybe when Walt and Effie get back, we’ll talk to them about buying that horse for you, Bekkah. She’s a lovely animal and you handle her well.”

“When are they coming home?” I’d begun to believe they’d never come back.

“Soon, I hope. I’m too old to worry over you children the way I do. It was easier when you were babies, crawling and destroying everything in sight.” She reached across the table and held my hand. “I
love you, Bekkah. And Arly too. That’s hard work for an old woman.”

“Mama Betts?”

“What is it?”

“Will Cammie die if she isn’t let out of the stall?”

She shook her head. “No, not just up and die. But it works on a horse’s nerves. They get twitchy and foul-tempered. Then they pick at their feed and start vices like weaving and cribbing. They don’t digest their food, and like people, they get sick.”

“Colic.” I’d heard Nadine tell terrible stories about horses with twisted guts. They died in agony.

“It happens. It’s beyond me why that young woman would want to pen animals up like that. It’d be easier on her to let them in the pasture. Less stalls to clean, less work, better for the horse.”

“It’s their coats. She doesn’t want them bleached out.”

“Well, Bekkah Rich, use your brain. Why doesn’t she let them out at night?”

She went outside to hang her clothes, and I was left alone in the kitchen with a lot to think about.

I’d come to no clear conclusions when September rolled into October. The days passed, and though I went to the edge of Nadine’s property more than once, I hadn’t caught a glimpse of the horses. They were in the barn, latched into the ten-by-ten stalls.

My grades fell, spiraling from the top of my class to D’s and a few C’s. Mama Betts’ repeated admonitions did no good. Frank Taylor’s attentions, and my talks with Alice, were the only things I had to look forward to.

The brief spell of autumn the weatherman had promised finally touched Kali Oka Road. The air was golden, crisp. It didn’t last but two days, but it gave us all the promise of fall and some relief from the humidity and heat. Every afternoon I worked with Mama Betts and tried not to think of Cammie or wonder about what had happened to Greg.

The telephone conversations between Mama Betts and Walt and Effie grew more intense. The president was sending troops to some Asian country where Mama Betts said we should not go. Ollie Stanford’s trial was starting in Meridian, and there had been death threats on his life from a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The North had erupted in race troubles, and the mood of the country was growing
ugly. I sat on the hardwood floor in the drag of the attic fan and listened to Mama Betts’ side of the conversation and knew exactly what Walt and Effie were saying back.

They would start home in two weeks, when Daddy’s contract was up. He’d been paid a tremendous amount of money. Effie, the woman who never left Kali Oka Road, wanted to go to Europe.

With my hair spread out behind me on the waxed oak floor, I couldn’t believe how things had changed. The attic fan hummed and pulled, but nothing else was the same.

Arly was getting ready to ride the pep squad bus to Poplarville with Rosie. Frank had asked me to ride with him, but I couldn’t endure another Friday night game. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t understand how football could be important to anyone with good sense. I hated it when the players crashed into and on top of each other. I hated it when they piled on top of Dewey Merritt and Jamey Louise got nearly hysterical, running out on the edge of the field with tears streaming down her face, only to be dragged back to the sidelines by the sympathetic cheerleaders. It wasn’t just a game, it was a blood sport, though Jamey didn’t have sense enough to know it. Soon enough someone was going to get hurt, and hurt bad. It seemed a stupid waste.

I told Frank I’d rather go skating on Saturday, or maybe even go fishing. That seemed to make him feel better about the game, but Alice warned me that I’d messed up bad. She said the bus ride was the place where a lot of important things got done in a boy-girl relationship. The trip to Poplarville was one of the longest and therefore the best. The chaperons got tired on the trip home, and while the big old bus lumbered through the night, kisses were given and taken. It was romantic as all get out. Alice was so excited her hair never stopped bouncing because Mack Sumrall had asked her to go with him.

As it turned out, the night was not all romance and stars for her. Agatha Waltman handed Alice a crushing defeat before the bus motor was even cranked. Alice was going to have to take Maebelle V. with her.

Mama Betts was outraged when she learned that Alice was going to drag that baby over a hundred miles there and a hundred miles back on an old school bus with a football game thrown in. When I offered to keep Maebelle V. since I was staying at home anyway, Alice and Mama Betts both thought it was a good idea.

I was waiting on Alice to deliver Maebelle while Mama Betts talked
on the phone to Effie in one of those conversations where their voices were quiet but strong. Mama Betts was telling about a visit that Huey Jones, the grand wizard of the local KKK, had paid on Ollie Stanford’s wife. Mrs. Stanford lived in one of those shotgun shanties in the Oak Grove area, which was on the edge of Jexville. Mrs. Stanford worked as a cook and maid for Camille Dossett, one of the founding widows of Jexville.