Velva Jean Learns to Drive (44 page)

The noise came from the woods. I woke up and reached for Harley, but he wasn’t there. I pulled the covers up around me and listened. It was a bright night—a full moon. The sky was lit up. In the distance, from up in the woods, I could hear the gunshots. One. Two. Three. I slipped out of bed, the floor cold and hard. I found a robe and pulled it on and saw from the clock on the wall—the one that had belonged to Li’l Dean’s mother and her mama before that—that it was just past midnight.

I put my ear to Levi’s door but I couldn’t hear anything from inside. I cracked the door and looked into the room, but his bed was made and there was no one in it.

Now I was starting to get scared. Was I alone in the house? I went down the stairs, one at a time, pausing on each step to listen. I made my way through the front room to the kitchen to the back porch, but Levi wasn’t there. Harley’s mudroom was dark—the door open, the desk tidy.

The nearest neighbor was Floyd Hatch, a quarter of a mile away. I went out onto the porch and wrapped my arms around myself and listened to the night. I said out loud, “Are you there, Lord? It’s Velva Jean. I don’t know what’s happening, but someone’s shooting up in the woods. Harley and Levi are gone. I’m here by myself. I don’t know what to do.”

Suddenly, Harley and Levi appeared from the woods above the house, rising out of the dark like a couple of spooks. I almost screamed, but then Harley ran for me, damp and laughing. He kissed me hard on the mouth. Then he kissed me softer and took my hand.

I said, “Where do you think you’ve been, Harley Bright? Did you hear those gunshots? What on earth is going on?”

We went into the house and Levi came in after us. In the oil light, I could see their hands and arms were scratched bloody and smeared with dirt.

“What have you been doing?” I said. Harley went into the kitchen to wash his hands. Levi scuffled up the stairs one at a time, talking to himself.

Harley walked back into the room, drying his hands on a towel. “Let’s go to bed,” he said. He had a look in his eye—a mean, happy look. It was the same look he’d had years ago when he was leading the bad Barrow gang. In spite of myself, my knees went weak.

I said, “Where have you been? Are you bleeding? Why are you so dirty?” But I let him lead me up to our room.

In bed he was rough and urgent. Butch’s song started up in my mind. I couldn’t remember any of the words, but I could feel it running inside me. Harley couldn’t get close enough to me, like he was trying to crawl up in me and through me and across me to the other side. Something had gotten him all stirred up. At one point, he pulled away from me and said, “You’d better be thinking of me, Velva Jean. Only me. I don’t want you ever thinking of anyone else.” And he sounded both angry and sad when he said it—his voice far away and lost.

I said, “Honey, what are you talking about? Of course I’m only thinking of you.” I tried to block out the song. I said, “I love you, Harley Bright,” but by then the moment had passed and he was back and focused, his eyes wicked and laughing, and then wide open and full, and he said, “I love you, too.” And then he collapsed on top of me and I rocked him gently, gently till he fell asleep. For the rest of the night I lay there, wide awake, wondering what on earth had got into him and where on earth he’d been.

The following afternoon, Sheriff Story came up the mountain on behalf of the National Park Service and the federal government and went from house to house, asking everyone questions. He said that twenty-three trees had been cut down and piled across the fresh-carved scenic roadway, along with logs and other garbage. So far no one would say who did it. When I heard this, my stomach turned over. Suddenly, the night before made sense—the gunshots, the blood and dirt on Harley and Levi’s hands. I tried to push it out of my mind, to tell myself they couldn’t have been involved in something so horrible.

The sheriff and I stood looking at each other. He was a nice and decent man. He had taken care of my daddy many a time, cleaning him up, keeping him out of trouble, making sure he got home safe. He had taken care of Levi.

He said, “The government is thinking of hiring park rangers to protect the Scenic. I just don’t understand who would want to cause such damage to a road, especially one that ain’t even built yet. Just because some folks don’t believe in it, don’t mean they have the right to ruin it for the rest of us. I ain’t been many places in my life or seen many things, but I figure that road might give me the chance. I don’t appreciate whoever did this trying to take that chance away.” The sheriff was watching me close. He said, “You know what I mean?”

For nearly a full minute I couldn’t say anything. After all this time, I had never once thought about it that way. Not even once. When I finally found my voice, I said, “Yes. I think I do.”

Later that day, after the sheriff was gone, I tiptoed out of the house and down the porch steps and across the yard. Harley was at the church. Levi was up in the woods at his still. I was all alone as usual, stuck up on that hill.

I got into the yellow truck and turned the key and brought that old engine to life. I hit the starter pedal, letting it go. I put my hand on the gearshift and my left foot on the brake and my right foot on the clutch. I downshifted and felt the truck lurch, and then I took my foot off the brake and hit the clutch and moved my right foot to the gas. I thought: I have no idea what I’m doing. Yellow truck, show me the way.

The truck started moving backward and I hollered. I hit the brake and moved the gearshift and then eased up on the brake and tapped the gas, and this time I moved forward just a little. I hit the brake. I tapped the gas. I hit the brake. I tapped the gas. I hit the brake. I did this over and over again, my head jerking back and forth, until I had inched past the barn and the chicken house and out toward the front yard. I stopped the truck and adjusted the rearview mirror. I looked at myself. I said, “Look what you’ve done, Velva Jean Hart Bright. You just drove this yellow truck.”

Then I backed up, one inch at a time, until the truck was back behind the barn, right where it started. Where no one would know it had ever been driven at all.

TWENTY-NINE

In one week’s time, the twenty-three trees and the garbage and logs were cleared off the Scenic and construction began on the stretch that wound from Devil’s Courthouse to Buckeye Gap. Miles away, to the west of us, over the ridgeline, crews moved in toward the Indian nation around Soco Gap and down toward Big Witch. We felt surrounded. The road was now closing in and coming at us from two sides. Aunt Junie was already gone from her land, and one day Buck Frey and his family were gone, too, followed by the Toomeys.

After the damage done to the Scenic, the outlanders stuck to the top of the mountain. For a little while, they didn’t come down to Alluvial, and Butch and the other boys stopped coming to church. Harley was back at work, back to preaching, just like nothing had happened. We never talked about what went on that night. He never offered, and I never asked.

Janette Lowe was saved on a Sunday in the middle of May. She was born again in the waters of Panther Creek. One minute Harley was talking, not even trying to save anyone—he hadn’t even got up to steam yet, hadn’t even hit his stride. The next minute, Janette went tearing out of the church and was dancing up and down the banks of the stream. She passed over quicker than anyone I’d ever seen, dancing in the Spirit, with love and joy and a fire so pure and wild it could make a doubter believe. “Just like her mama,” Sister Dearborn said. We all stood watching her, especially Harley, who I could tell by the look on his face was wondering what went wrong.

Janette Lowe danced by me and suddenly I wanted to join her. I thought how silly it was that we just stood staring at her while she rejoiced, like she was something to be watched, like a carnival show. I wanted to rejoice along with her. For the first time, Janette Lowe didn’t seem worried about how dirty she was or how poor she looked. She didn’t seem to care who watched her dance.

As she spun by me, she brushed my arm and I grabbed her hand. She looked surprised and then she took hold of my other hand and together we started dancing. I heard Harley call, “Velva Jean.” I caught a glimpse of his frowning face as we spun around and around in happy circles—dizzy, laughing, spinning madly. We laughed and yelled and jumped up and down, and I started to sing. We splashed through the creek and back up on land and our feet moved up and down and didn’t rest.

On the way home, Harley said, “The two of you looked like fools.”

I said, “Only to you maybe, but not to the Lord.”

“To me and the rest of the congregation,” Harley said. “I didn’t even save that girl. How did she know she was saved?”

I said, “When you’re saved, you know it. You don’t need anyone to tell you.” I thought Harley was being awfully possessive of Jesus these days, just because Jesus had given him a church.

He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he said, “You could make ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ sound sexy, Velva Jean.” I could tell he didn’t mean it as a good thing.