The Homecoming of Samuel Lake (27 page)

Samuel said, “Bernice, I’m taking you to the house.”

He took her arm.

She jerked it away. “Like hell you are,” she seethed. “You think you’re just going to take me back over there and drop me in Toy’s lap, and say, ‘Here she is, I’m finished with her’?”

Samuel backed away in disbelief.

“Well, we’re not finished, Samuel. We won’t ever be finished. I’m the one who stood beside you when everybody knew you were floundering. Why, I’ve been more of a helpmate to you than your own wife, who’s over there tending bar and probably being rubbed up against by the regulars right this very minute.”

Samuel shook his head and looked away. Bernice knew she’d just touched on a sore spot, so she pressed her advantage.

“I’ve heard stories about Calvin Furlough spending an awful lot of time in Never Closes since Willadee started working in there,” she informed him. “And you know, Calvin’s got a way with the ladies. He could wake a woman up sauntering through her dreams at night.”

Samuel rubbed his eyes and laughed. It was a sort of hollow laugh, but it was still a laugh, and nobody laughed at Bernice Moses.

“Don’t you laugh at me, Sam Lake,” she warned him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for laughing. It’s not funny anyway, it’s pathetic.”

He’d said it was pathetic. Which meant she was pathetic. Bernice glared at him. Hating him suddenly. Despising him.

“It’s pathetic,” Samuel went on, “because you can’t let a good thing be a good thing. You can’t even stand for a good thing to live. You poison everything you touch.”

“Poison,” she said. “Now, there’s a thought.”

And with that, she walked away.

Samuel lay awake that night wondering whether Bernice had been trying to make him believe that she was going to kill herself or somebody else. Whichever one it was, he was sure it was an empty threat. Bernice could be spiteful and devious, but she’d never do anything to jeopardize her own comfort or safety, much less her freedom. She had driven off in the direction of her own house, and he assumed that was where she’d ended up. Probably, she would show up at the revival tomorrow night trying to convince him that he’d imagined the whole thing ever happened.

He considered waking Toy and telling him about the incident. But what would that accomplish? There’d be a lot of hard feelings, and Toy would have one more piece of unpleasantness to have to live with, and Bernice would just turn everything around to make it sound as if Samuel had been the one making the advances.

So maybe he shouldn’t say a word. Maybe sometimes the best thing a man can do is let folks believe whatever makes them happy. It didn’t occur to Samuel that this kind of reasoning was the very thing he’d hated most about Moses Honesty. All he was thinking as he drifted off to sleep was that he could hardly wait for morning and for Willadee.

Chapter 35

At dawn, when Willadee dragged herself up the stairs and into their room, Samuel grabbed her and hung on like a drowning man. Kissing her hair, which reeked of smoke. Kissing her eyes, which were red with fatigue. Kissing her mouth and her neck and her shoulders and all the other familiar territories, which he’d been neglecting of late.

She tried to pull away. He wouldn’t let her.

“I love you,” he said. “Willadee, I love you like a bird loves the sky.”

“I smell like the bar,” she protested.

“I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.”

“What’s happened to you, Samuel?”

He was laughing now. Loud enough to be heard through the walls, if anybody was listening. And if anybody was listening, he didn’t care about that, either.

“I had a vision last night,” he said. “God gave me a vision. He showed me clear as day what my life would have been without you.”

It was all Bernice could do to stay inside her own skin. She paced the floor of her house like a caged cat, weeping and yowling. All this time, she’d been planning what her life would be like with Samuel, and now that her plans had been shattered, she couldn’t think of one thing in the world that she wanted or cared about.

She didn’t really want to die, but she didn’t really want to live, either, plus she’d made that comment to Samuel about the poison, so she had more or less painted herself into a corner. It seemed to her that committing suicide or attempting suicide or at least
appearing
to attempt suicide would be the only way she could save face and punish Samuel at the same time. He would surely blame himself for driving her to that, and once word got around, everybody else would blame him, too. His reputation would be sullied, if not destroyed.

As for her own reputation, she really didn’t care what happened to it. She knew full well what folks around here had thought of her, ever since Yam Ferguson died. The only reason they looked at her with any kind of respect nowadays was that she’d been making such a show of having religion, and she was not about to keep that up. Acting the part had been kind of a lark, as long as she’d thought it might win Samuel over, but she’d be damned if she would spend the rest of her life acting all holy. If Samuel had really cared about her salvation, he’d had his chance to help her stay on the straight and narrow.

Besides, she wasn’t going to stay in Columbia County. She wasn’t even going to stay in Arkansas. Why should she? There had to be someplace better, and in another day or so, she was going to go looking for it.

But first things first.

Knowing Samuel, he must be torturing himself, wondering what she’d meant by what she said, and whether she was going to do something desperate. She figured that, after last night, he’d be way too gun-shy to come to check on her himself, but she was confident that he’d send somebody.

By late afternoon, Bernice had gathered everything in the house that she thought might be poisonous and had the items lined up on the kitchen table. Bleach, ammonia, Dr
no, furniture polish, floor polish, rat poison, a small bottle of Miltown “happy pills” that the doctor had prescribed for her back when Toy was in the hospital and she was acting distraught, and a large bottle of Cardui that Calla had given her once when she made the mistake of claiming to be having trouble with her monthlies.

Deciding what to take was easy. Besides not wanting to die, she didn’t want to suffer while she was waiting to be saved, so she ruled out all the household products right off the bat. She left them on the table, though, for the impact they would have. Whoever came to check on her would be talking for the rest of their life about how it was a good thing she didn’t drink that bleach or eat that rat poison because then there would have been no saving her. Just for fun, she uncapped the can of rat poison and laid it over on its side so that some of it spilled out onto the tabletop.

All she intended to take was a couple of Miltowns, and she wouldn’t down those until her rescuer arrived and was coming in the front door. No sense tempting Fate. She’d never been much of a drinker (liquor hit her too hard and too fast), but she needed something to ease the knotted-up feeling in the pit of her stomach, so she helped herself to a fifth of spirits from the liquor supply that Toy had stockpiled in the spare bedroom back when he was still bootlegging. Then she took a hot bath that lasted for over half the bottle.

When Bernice didn’t show up at the tent revival that night, Samuel didn’t know whether to be troubled or relieved. The temperature had dropped down below freezing, so the congregation was a bit sparse, but the folks who had bundled up and come out kept asking him while he was tuning the instruments where Bernice was and why she was late. The only thing he could tell them was that he hadn’t talked to her all day, and he sure hoped she hadn’t come down with a cold or the flu. He was getting more Moses Honest all the time.

He couldn’t escape the thought that somebody ought to go over and look in on her, to make sure she was all right. He would have bet his life she was, but he’d never stop feeling guilty if it turned out she wasn’t and he hadn’t tried to help.

He couldn’t send Toy, because Toy had already been through so much and didn’t need to be worrying about problems that more than likely didn’t exist. Willadee was working, besides which no good could come of throwing Bernice and Willadee together right now. Calla didn’t drive, so she was out. That pretty much left the law and members of the congregation, and Samuel didn’t relish the idea of getting any of those people involved. They might all be the finest folks in the world, but they weren’t family.

Neither was Bootsie Phillips, but he suddenly came to mind. At first, Samuel thought that was the craziest idea he’d ever had, but then he remembered what Willadee had told him recently—that ever since the day Toy was shot, Bootsie had developed a whole new image of himself. He’d stopped drinking quite so heavily, frequently said things that made sense, and had appointed himself Willadee’s protector when she started working in Never Closes.

Samuel looked around until he spotted Noble and waved him over. Noble bounded up onto the stage with his daddy, glad to be of service. Samuel put his arm around the boy, leaning down close to his ear. “Run across the road and dig Bootsie Phillips out of Never Closes, and bring him over here.” He kept his voice down to a murmur.

Noble did a double take, thoroughly confused. “
Bootsie?
What on earth do you want with—?” But the look on Samuel’s face reminded him who was the kid and who was the grown-up here. “What if he’s not in there?”

“The place is open, Noble. He’s in there.”

“I thought it was against the law for me to—”

“You don’t have to go all the way inside. Go through the house and stick your head in the door and ask your mama to tell Bootsie I need him to do something for me.”

“What if he’s drunk?”

Samuel was trying to be patient, but the more Noble balked, the more tense he felt. On top of that, his little crowd was getting restless. He was about to have to either start the music or tell those folks to go on home.

“Just do it,” he said. “Do it now.”

Noble took off for the house. Samuel blew out a sigh, slipped his guitar strap over his head, and walked over to the microphone. The congregation settled down, waiting expectantly. Samuel plucked at the strings, running songs through his mind, trying to choose the right one for this moment. He and Bernice always had a music list planned out, but most of those songs begged for harmony, and that was one thing he couldn’t manage on his own. After a moment, he opened his mouth, and his sweet tenor rang through the night.

“I am weak but thou art strong,” he sang, and it was like he was casting a spell. Every man, woman, and child in the place got easy at the same time, smiling gently and swaying like grass in the wind.

Willadee didn’t know what to think when Noble stuck his head in the door and told her his daddy needed to see Bootsie Phillips.

“What on earth does he want with Bootsie?”

“I asked him that,” Noble told her. “But he didn’t tell me.”

Willadee shrugged and turned to Bootsie, who was seated at the bar in a semi-sober state, keeping an eye on the regulars.

“Need anything, Willadee?” he asked eagerly as soon as he saw her looking his way.

“Samuel wants you, across the road.”

“What on earth does Samuel want with—?”

“Nobody knows. But it must be big for him to send Noble over here to get you.” She didn’t really figure it was all
that
big. The last time there’d been a crisis at the revival, Samuel had found a rat snake in his amplifier and couldn’t get it out. But it was good for Bootsie to feel needed.

Bootsie was off his stool before Willadee finished talking. He stood up straight as a master sergeant, motioned for Noble to lead the way, and off they went.

“Now, y’all behave yourselves while I’m gone,” he called over his shoulder to the customers, “or you’ll answer to me when I get back.” To Willadee he said, “I won’t be gone any longer than I have to.”

Willadee smiled, the way she always smiled when Bootsie delivered some solemn pronouncement or made a show of looking out for her. Actually, she’d never felt she needed any protection in Never Closes. All the regulars seemed to consider themselves responsible for her safety. They even watched their language when she was nearby, and Bootsie wasn’t the only one who had cut down on his drinking.

“Crazy Arms” was just winding down on the jukebox, and all of a sudden, Willadee could hear the music from across the road. Samuel singing, high and clear. Just Samuel. Willadee listened for a second, wondering why Bernice wasn’t singing, too. Then Samuel’s song ended just as a rompin’, stompin’ hillbilly number started playing on the jukebox, and Willadee couldn’t hear herself think.

Samuel had all the little kids in the congregation lined up at the edge of the stage singing “This Little Light of Mine.” When Noble and Bootsie stepped inside the tent, Samuel saw them and nodded for Noble to go take a seat. Then he and Bootsie ducked back through the tent flaps into the frigid night air.

Bootsie stood there, fairly steady on his feet, looking Samuel in the eye. “What’s up, Preacher?”

Samuel explained that his sister-in-law hadn’t made it to services, and hadn’t called anybody to say she wasn’t coming, so he was concerned and he needed somebody dependable to go check on her.

“More than likely she’s fine,” he said. “But you never know. It’s possible she had a flat tire or some kind of car trouble.” He didn’t add that she might have poisoned herself or that she might be sitting at home planning a murder.

Bootsie swelled with pride at being trusted with such an important responsibility and assured Samuel that he’d be glad to go, there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for the Moses family or the Lake family, either.

“Well, I’m grateful for the way you’ve been looking out for Willadee. You’re a good man, Bootsie.”

Samuel gave Bootsie a hearty pat on the back. Bootsie rocked back and forth like a sailor on a ship deck, managing somehow not to lose his balance and fall slap over.

“I’m sure tryin’ to be,” he said gravely. “It ain’t as easy as it looks.”

All the way to Toy and Bernice’s house, Bootsie kept thinking how nice it felt to have people depending on him and calling on him when they had a problem. Not too long ago, there wasn’t a soul in the county who would have trusted him to check on their family dog, much less a beautiful, delicate woman like Bernice Moses.

Bootsie’s log truck was a worn-out old piece of embarrassment that rattled and clanked and shuddered and wheezed and listed to the left. He always had to grip the wheel with both hands and wrestle mightily to keep from flattening oncoming traffic. Ordinarily, he drove hard and fast, as though he couldn’t wait to see what would happen when the wheels came off. Tonight was different. He poked along, scanning the roadside for a broken-down car and a frantic woman, but the only frantic thing he saw was a squirrel that was spinning around and around trying to decide whether it wanted to run under his wheels or head for the woods.

When he got to Toy’s place, there were no lights on anywhere, not even on the porch. Bootsie felt his way through the darkness, going across the yard and up the steps.

“Anybody home?” he called out. The only sound was a tree limb scraping against the side of the house.

He knocked several times, but no one answered, so he opened the door, eased inside, and switched on the lights. The living room was so neat it looked as if nobody lived there.

He moved on, through the house.

The tiny little dining room was as fastidiously kept as the living room, and so was the kitchen, except for the table. Bootsie saw the jumble of cans and bottles—the cleaning supplies and the medicines—and he figured he knew why she hadn’t shown up at the revival. She had obviously worked herself to exhaustion cleaning house, plus she must have cramps, which he knew from his wife could be more painful than anything a man could ever imagine, so she’d taken some Cardui and a nerve pill and had gone to bed early. Probably she was sound asleep by now, conked out by the Miltown. He didn’t have any explanation for the spilled rat poison, but he’d already done more thinking in one night than he usually did in a week, so that one little detail didn’t bother him.