Summer of the Redeemers (43 page)

“Got him?”

“He was orphaned. No one else wanted him.”

Cathi picked up her purse. “I’m going to drive straight on to the Delta. When you get home, I want you to call the newspaper and tell them I was called away. An emergency.”

“They’re going to fire you,” I warned her.

“That might not be the worst thing,” she said. “I’m not sure I want to stay in Mobile. It’s a small town …” She faded away. What she meant was that she’d given up the idea of staying close to The Judge.

“If I had to live in a city, I’d go to New Orleans. There’s an amusement park and a place to ride horses along the banks of the river.”

She pulled me against her for a hug. “It has everything, huh?” “Almost.”

She opened the door. “Can I do anything for you before I go?”

“Take me home,” I whispered. “I can’t stay here any longer.”

She made the arrangements with the principal, and in a matter of minutes we were driving through the bright October day.

The pecan leaves had started to fall, and I knew that in only a few weeks the beautiful green orchard would look like skeletal fans opened to the sky. I loved fall and winter. No one else liked the cold but me, and I couldn’t wait until I could ride Cammie down the road through the frost. No matter how much trouble I was in, I still had Picket and Cammie. And no matter how much Effie and The Judge fussed at me, they’d get to the bottom of things for Greg and Magdeline. It was nice to know that Cathi was already getting the ball rolling.

She pulled into the yard and I got out. “Be careful,” I said, meaning the long drive. In some stretches the road was poorly maintained, and the area was isolated. The Judge had taken us through the Delta only the summer before on one of his educational vacations. It had seemed like a slow drive through hell.

“You be careful,” she said. “And stay away from the Redeemers. And Nadine.”

“I’m restricted to the yard,” I told her, “except to see Cammie.”

“Good.” She waved and pulled out. I went in the house to forage around in the refrigerator and to wait for Effie to come home.

Arly was more than glad to drive Mama Betts into town. She wanted to pick out some material to make new curtains for the kitchen, and she said Arly could go to his last class while she shopped. He was so excited about having the car at school that he didn’t even think that he was being hustled out of the way so Effie and I could have some privacy. I knew exactly what Mama Betts was up to, especially when she didn’t raise a stink about me being home.

Whatever she’d said to Effie had calmed the fires. Mama met me with a hug that nearly broke every bone in my body. She was crying a little and looked real guilty. It was interesting to see that Mama Betts could do to her exactly what Effie did to me. Hand-me-down guilt.

When we were alone in the house, Effie asked if I wanted to sit on the porch and talk. I sat beside her and waited for her to start asking the questions.

“Your father and I have come to an agreement,” she said. “I’m so sorry we were so far away when all of this happened and you needed us. But it has given us time to make some decisions, about us and you children.”

I was going to be grounded for the next twenty years. I looked down at my hands.

“We’re going to stay on Kali Oka for the rest of this school year, and next summer we’re going to travel. We may go back out to Hollywood, all of us as a family, or we may go to Europe and spend the summer in Spain.”

I couldn’t believe this. “Mama Betts too?”

“She wants to stay here. And I don’t blame her. She wants us to be a family. Me and you and Arly and Walt. Just for a few months we’ll be all together, just us.” She swallowed, and I knew that what she was saying might not be her idea completely.

“And Picket?”

“Picket will stay with your grandmother, where she’ll be happy.” She took my hand. “Bekkah, I’ve never wanted to leave this road, for several reasons. None of them are good enough by themselves, but all put together, they became too important. It’s going to be hard for me, and I’m going to need your help.”

I was completely confused. “Why? Why do we have to go anywhere?”

“Your father is the kind of man who has to learn new things.” She looked at me and smiled. “You should have seen him in Los Angeles. He was absorbing everything he could. He didn’t like the movie people, but he learned how they worked. Then he started mentioning a few ideas to Rita. Wonderful ideas.” She kissed my forehead. “Anyway, watching him like that, I knew that I’d been very selfish. My thoughts come from inside me, from my dreams and from the way I see the light in the trees around that little spring in the woods. All I have to do is sit here, right in this old swing, and let my imagination go. Mama Betts used to tell me all sorts of things, little fancies and stories. They’re all here, right on this road, waiting for me to pluck them up and use them. I told you, Kali Oka is magic for me.” She sighed. “But there are other kinds of magic. And we, you and I, have to learn to look at them too.”

“Why?” I was being stubborn, but the idea of leaving Picket and Cammie and Mama Betts, even for a summer that was still a lifetime away, didn’t sit well with me.

“You sound like me,” she said, “and that’s the best answer I have for you. You’re too young to let this road become your life. And I’m too old. That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

“Are things okay? With you and Daddy?”

She looked down at her hand for a moment. “Yes. They’re better than they’ve been in a while. We love each other very much, you know. I think maybe I took that for granted a little. Families should experience things together.”

None of it made sense to me. “What about the Redeemers?”

The softness left her face. “That remains to be seen. I’m debating whether I should go down there alone or with the sheriff.”

“Joe Wickham won’t go. Mama Betts called him.”

“I’m certainly not afraid to go down there and have it out with that bully myself. The idea that he’d beat a child and steal Picket …” Her face was white with anger. “Did they really shave that woman’s head?”

“They cut her hair off with scissors, but it was real short.”

“Because she dyed her hair. What a sin.”

“At least they didn’t beat her,” I pointed out.

“It’s easy to punish women and children, isn’t it, Bekkah?” Effie rose from the porch swing. “I think I am going down there. It’s time they met a woman they couldn’t bully or intimidate.”

“No!” I grabbed her hand. “No!”

“Bekkah!” Effie turned to me with a look of surprise. “You’re terrified of them.” She spoke softly, more as an observation to herself than a comment to me.

“Mama, you don’t know how mean they are.”

“Why don’t we go take a look at that horse you want us to buy for you? Emily said she was a beauty.”

It wasn’t a subtle change of topic, but I was willing to let it work. “Can we?” I hadn’t dared hope Effie would really think about buying her.

“Right this minute. We’ll leave Mama Betts a note telling her where we’ve gone.”

“Effie, why aren’t you going to punish me for going down to the Redeemers and all?”

She had started into the house to write her note. “I didn’t say we weren’t going to punish you. That hasn’t been decided, Bekkah. When Walt gets here and we sort through all of this, then we’ll decide. This isn’t something that can be done with a snap of the fingers.” She looked at me and lifted her eyebrows. “After all, you’ve had the entire summer to get yourself into this mess.”

It seemed like it had been a million years since I’d smiled, but I did then. “I missed you and The Judge so much. Every day I wanted to call and beg you to come home.”

“Why didn’t you?” Effie was plainly curious. “I’ve wondered and wondered that. I thought maybe you didn’t have enough trust in us.”

I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t that. I kept thinking I could get out of it. That nothing else would happen until you came home on your own. Every time I talked to you, something wonderful had happened out there. It all sounded so good, and I thought it would be wrong to tell you this because I knew you’d both come running home.”

Effie walked back to me and kissed me softly on the forehead. “You’ve just given the perfect example of why families need to stay together. Think about that when you think about what fun we’re going to have next summer. Think about how important it is to your father.”

Thirty-nine

I
GAVE Cammie a serious talk about how important it was for her to behave before I brought her out of the Welfords’ dark barn and into the sunlight. Dazzles sparked in the deep mahogany sheen of her coat, and she greeted Effie with a soft whinny. She’d been out every day in the Welfords’ pecan orchard, and her coat was magnificent, better than it had ever been before. The rolling eyes and nervous dancing were almost gone. I wanted to ride over to Nadine’s and show her, but I was also hesitant. I didn’t have the money to buy her yet, and I didn’t want to run into Greg. I’d never be able to face him without thinking of the loft, of the sunlight, and Nadine’s web of golden hair.

“Ride her,” Effie commanded, and I did. Cammie was as good as gold. She walked, trotted, and cantered with the steadiness of an old and reliable mount. She was perfection. When I stopped beside Effie, Cammie rubbed her head against my mother’s palm. At last even Effie couldn’t resist the temptation to climb aboard. Effie was trembling so hard I had to give her a leg up to get her in the saddle, but she got on and walked one time around the pecan orchard. I knew what it cost her to pretend not to be afraid. I could see the slight trace of blood where she bit her lip. But I acted like I didn’t. Effie slid to the ground, gave Cammie a hug, and said Walt would send the money to Nadine as soon as he got home. A check would also be sent to Cathi Cummings.

“I owe Mrs. Cummings a thank-you,” Effie said, a curious smile on
her face. “For more than one thing.” She laughed and left me to ride while she walked home.

As I watched my slender mama walk toward home, I felt my life settle back around me. There would be differences. Either Kali Oka had shrunk or my horizons had stretched. It didn’t matter. I’d already begun to plan how I was going to get Effie and The Judge to include Alice in our vacation plans. Agatha Waltman could find some other slave to tend to her young’uns. If we went to Spain, we’d be only a hop, skip and jump from Paris, and I wanted Alice to see it—before she up and married Mack Sumrall and started producing bullet-headed brats of her own.

All that night through supper, with Alice and Maebelle V. present to welcome Effie home, we laughed and giggled, and I schemed. Alice shot me some suspicious looks. To have been so upset at school, I was certainly in the catbird seat. I just enjoyed my grin and the way Alice would look when she saw that rainy Paris street where the woman in the red suit and hat walked her dog.

When the phone rang it was Frank Taylor, inviting me and Alice on a picnic Saturday with Mack Sumrall. I held my breath while I asked Effie. I wanted to talk with Frank, but it would be so much better if Alice was along. Mack didn’t matter one way or another, but he made Alice happy so I was willing to put up with him.

“You’re too young to date,” Effie said, slicing the magnificent sweet potato pies Mama Betts had made.

“It’s not a date. Not a real date. It’s a picnic, down at Bernard’s Lake. There’ll be a bunch of other people there too.”

“Okay.” Effie didn’t look up, but I caught the hint of a grin at her mouth.

It was all going to be fine. The Judge had made arrangements to fly home Saturday. He’d sold his car and Effie was going to meet him at the airport in Mobile. Together they were going to pick out a new one for him before they came home.

The week passed in a haze of golden sun, school, Cammie, and giggles between me and Alice. It wasn’t summer, not like any summers of the past and certainly not like the one I’d just survived, but it was almost as good. Sometimes I thought about the other horses down at Nadine’s, and I worried about them. Her cats had all disappeared, and the dogs were dead, so she had nothing to tend to except the horses,
and Greg. Even the thought of them together made me physically cringe. I didn’t care that they were screwing, it was just that Greg wasn’t but two years older than me and Nadine was a woman. She’d been married three times. It didn’t seem right, no matter how I tried to think of it. It was also the only thing I hadn’t confessed about. In some tangled way I had become a part of what they did, and it made me anxious.

Friday afternoon I went to ride Cammie early. I’d promised Gus I’d help him clean the barn. When I got there Jamey Louise was waiting for me. She’d even started working.

She was raking old hay into a pile outside the barn door for Gus to move, and I was shifting the good bales up front. Gus was getting ready for the winter hay to come in, and he had to make a place ready for it. It was the work that Greg had done, over and over again, at Nadine’s. Maybe we were both thinking about him, but it was Jamey who spoke.

“Have you seen him lately?” she asked.

I knew who. For a second I wanted to tell her what I’d seen. She’d feel as angry as I did about it. But good sense held me back. Jamey’s reaction would make me feel good, but then she’d never be able to keep her mouth shut. It would be all over school and Arly would hear it. Then I’d be in more trouble.

“His back is getting better.”

“Is he back down with the Redeemers?”

“I don’t know.” I spoke sharply because the truth was, I didn’t know. And it bothered me. Greg didn’t have many choices of where to be. The Redeemers or Nadine’s. One would hurt him physically, and the other? The preacherman had said Nadine would steal his soul.

“Bekkah?”

“Yeah?” I didn’t break the rhythm of my work.

“Would you go down to Nadine’s with me to look for Greg?” She put her pitchfork down. “Please. I ought to tell him some things. I should have done it a long time ago.”

“I don’t think Greg’s studying talking with you,” I said. Jamey Louise was the one person who didn’t need to go down there and catch them at something.

“The way I ended it wasn’t right.”

“That’s over and done, Jamey. Might as well let it go.”

“I’d like to. It’s just that lately I’ve got to thinking how I’d feel if someone treated me that way.”

“Developing a conscience?” I teased her gently. I knew how bad it was to hurt somebody, intentional or not. “It’s best just to let it alone. I mean it. Greg’s gone on. He was hurt for a while, but he put it behind him. It might be worse to go down there now and dredge it all up.”

Jamey went back to work. She didn’t say anything else, but I could tell she was still thinking about talking to Greg. I could go down to Nadine’s and leave him a message to come to Jamey’s. I was going to have to go down there Saturday and give Nadine the check for Cammie. Once she took that check in her hands, Cammie would be mine. Forever.

I finished with the barn and rode, and Picket and I headed for home. Effie had cooked some collard greens, cornbread and barbecued ribs. I was starving.

We’d all sat down to eat when the telephone rang. Arly nearly broke his neck getting to it. He and Rosie had been arguing, and she’d threatened not to go to the Friday night game with him. Once again I’d decided to stay home. Alice was going to bring Maebelle V. over to keep me company. Even though it was a home game, Alice wanted to yell and jump and cheer and run up and down the bleachers and drive Mack Sumrall wild with desire. All of that was hard to do with a baby slobbering on her shoulder.

Effie coming home from California was the reason I gave Frank for not going to the game, and it was partly true. I wanted to be home alone with Effie and Mama Betts one last night before The Judge returned. The week had been too wonderful. Effie had restored the magic of Kali Oka, and knowing that it would change when Daddy came home only made it more bittersweet. I wanted to see The Judge more than anything else in the world, but his coming home would shift the balance in the house. This was the last night for me, Effie and Mama Betts. In the past week we’d gone back to the way it was when I was almost a baby. We were going to make popcorn and watch
Thriller
all together with Maebelle V.

“It’s for you, Bekkah.”

I came out of my daydream long enough to get up from the table and go to the phone. Arly was giving me some kind of serious look. “It sounds like Mrs. Pierce, the social studies teacher from school. Bekkah
hasn’t been keeping up with her grades,” he informed Effie. “It must be serious for her to call here on a Friday night.”

I gave him a look that should have penetrated his heart like a spear. I put the receiver to my ear.

“Hello.”

“Bekkah, it’s Cathi Cummings.”

My gaze slid to Effie. She was pretending to eat, but she was watching me closely.

“We’re eating supper. My mother is home from California.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. This is important. I’ve got a line on those Redeemers. Listen closely. They were up in the Delta, just like Nadine said, but it was four years ago. They’d taken over an old campground on Lake Beulah, just near the town of Beulah. They weren’t there six months before all hell broke loose. Some woman claimed they’d taken her baby against her will. She said her parents had snatched the infant and given it to the Redeemers to raise, and she wanted it back. As it turned out, the baby wasn’t with the Redeemers, so she claimed that they’d sold it, like black-market babies.”

Cathi was talking so fast I had trouble following her. Effie was watching me, and twice she’d started to get up and come into the hall, but Mama Betts had stopped her.

“Are you listening, Bekkah? This is very important.”

“Go ahead.”

“Things got ugly. The Redeemers were attacked by several people in the Beulah community. The woman, a Dianne Salter, got the local people stirred up. She was from Beulah, or at least she was living there when all of this took place. She’s sort of a fuzzy character because when she left, no one knows where she went or exactly where she came from. Once the Redeemers left town, she didn’t stay long. She’d lived in a trailer court, had just had the baby with no evidence of a father. A strange case, from what I can tell. Trailer trash but not exactly. She had long brown hair, a very bold young woman. I’ve got to find out where she went, Bekkah. Folks around here say she never got her baby back, but there was never a report filed with the local sheriff. She started all of this trouble and then did nothing. None of this makes sense, and after four years people don’t remember the fine details. It seems like I’m running around in circles, just catching a whiff of the real story but not able to grab it.”

“I can see that.” Effie was listening to everything I said. I shifted my weight from my right foot to my left. If I turned my back to Effie, she’d wonder. I wanted to call her to the phone, to tell her it was Cathi Cummings, and that she was trying to help out with the Redeemers, but Effie was so happy. She was doing everything right, and Daddy was coming home tomorrow. I couldn’t throw Cathi into the middle of them, especially not when she didn’t mean anything to The Judge. I knew that.

“Bekkah, is something wrong?” Effie got up and came toward me.

“No, ma’am.” I smiled at her and pointed at the phone. “It is Mrs. Pierce. She wants to know something about a paper I wrote, and she wants some help with the Fall Festival booth.”

Effie looked meaningfully at the table, meaning I should say I’d call her back after supper. I put my hand over the receiver. “She’s going to Mobile in a few minutes, and it’s something she wants me to get tomorrow, from the woods.”

“Okay,” Effie said. She went and sat down and started eating again. Arly cranked up a conversation about how he needed to buy his own car. That got Effie and Mama Betts involved, and they forgot about me.

“I’m sorry,” Cathi said, “but this won’t wait. I wouldn’t put you in a spot like that for anything, Bekkah, but I have to know. What was Nadine’s maiden name? I can’t find a damn thing on a Nadine Andrews, not anywhere in the entire county. No one in Cleveland’s ever heard of her. She must be using one of her married names.”

“Why do you need that?”

“Nadine’s the last link I have to the preacherman. No one in Cleveland knew anything about the Redeemers, or at least they won’t own up to it. These little churches protect each other against outsiders. Beulah’s only about twenty miles from Cleveland. If Nadine was married to the man who became their preacher, then I can trace him through her marriage records, if I can find anything.”