Lesley Kagen - Tomorrow River

Woody shakes her head, but she does.

I take her hands in mine and say, “I had a visit with Curry Weaver tonight and you know what he said? He told me that you’re the only one in the whole world that can help Sam because you’re an eyewitness to what happened to Mama. That means you’re a very important person. We’ve got to keep you out of harm’s way. You don’t want to let Sam down, do you? You don’t want your new uncle to have to work on a chain gang, do you?”

“Get your twin butts down here!” Grampa can’t be more than ten paces away.

Woody lays her head on my chest. Ivory sets a paw high on my thigh.

“One more thing,” I say, petting them both. “You need to meet Curry out on the road in front of the house tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. He’s got some news for us.” My sister’s warm breath is coming fast onto my neck. She knows what’s bound to happen to me once I leave the fort. “Oh, c’mon now. It’s not the end of the world. Shoot. I can handle the root cellar with one hand tied behind my back. There’s those delicious strawberry preserves down there. I could eat all those up and wouldn’t you be jealous.”

I manage to get a teensy smile out of her.

“Sum bitch,” Grampa says, from right below us. “You girls make me send Ruth Love up after ya, I ain’t gonna be happy.”

“I’ll see you soon,” I tell Woody. “Go straight to E. J.’s. And keep your eyes peeled.” Then I call in my most congenial voice, “I’m comin’ right down, Grampa. Golly, I’m so, so sorry. I must’ve dozed off. Didn’t hear you.”

When I lift the fort hatch, Woody whimpers, whispers, “Hushacat .”

“Amen,” I say, even though I don’t believe for one second that everything’ll be all right no matter how bad it looks at the present time. And neither does Saint Jude. Over my sister’s shoulder, I can see the plastic statue of the granter of hope for the hopeless. He’s lying facedown on the rusty coffee can altar.

My arm may be broken.

Grampa practically ripped it out of its socket when I came down out of the fort. “Smile!” he shouted, so he would know which twin I was.

The lights are down low in the kitchen. Just the one above the stove top and the brass lamp on the counter are lit. A half-empty bottle of Maker’s is standing in the middle of the round kitchen table. The Carmody men have been interrogating me. Gramma has wandered off somewhere.

Brave Beezy came pounding plaintively at the door a little while ago. “I know what you’re tryin’ to do to my boy, Gus, and ya ain’t gonna get away with it. Bring me those girls. Show me my babies.” Her cries were no more important to them than the owl hooting in the backyard tree.

Grampa’s wearing brown trousers and a tan sport shirt stretched across his belly. Below the pocket is a speck of barbeque sauce, or it could be my blood. His crew cut is buzzed down to his sunburned skull, his hands are tantrum red and within reach of his double-barrel shotgun. The usual Lucky Strike cigarette is stuck in the corner of his mouth, so wisps of smoke are hanging over us.

Papa leans forward in his chair and says, “I’m only going to ask you one more time, Shenandoah. Where is Jane Woodrow?”

I can’t hardly talk because my lip is so swollen. “I already told you, sir, I… I don’t know. I wish I did.”

Bare-chested Blackie raises his hand again, but Grampa says, “Don’t mark up her face anymore. We got the festivities to think of.” He pours himself a couple of fingers out of the bottle. “What difference does it make where Janie is, anyhoo? Now that she’s admitted it’s her we saw that night in the fort even if she could talk, who’d believe her? All that flappin’ and eye blinkin’. Anybody can see the girl’s got bats in the belfry.” He downs the whiskey and wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “We can look for her later. When we find her, Shenny will help us impress upon her twin the importance of keepin’ her mouth shut, won’t ya, honey?”

“I sure will, Grampa,” I say. If they knew it was me that promised my father to keep quiet and not Woody… I can’t think what they’d do to me.

Uncle Blackie says, “Gus is right.” His sons have always called their father Gus because he doesn’t like to be called Daddy or Papa. He thinks it’s sissy. “We’ll go lookin’ for Janie later. I’ve been hankering for a game of hide-’n’-seek,” he says, giving me a playful smile.

“Speakin’ of mental cases, where’s that woman gone off to? Ruth Love, get in here.” Grampa leans back and bellows. “Bring me a piece of that pie.”

The lemon meringue is setting on the kitchen counter not a foot away from him, right below the radio, which is playing something low and bluesy. The three of them are so drunk, they’re swaying to the drumbeat and don’t even know it.

Grampa burps and says, “Time to get to the business at hand. Go ahead, Wally.” He doesn’t respect him, but he knows that my first-in-his-law-school-class father is far more skilled than a horse farrier or a land baron at posing probing questions.

Papa rolls up the sleeves of his wrinkled white shirt and says to me, “Remmy Hawkins told me that he saw you and your sister over at the Triple S the other day visiting with Sam Moody. Is that true?”

“I… I’ve been meaning to tell you about that, sir. Woody… I mean Jane Woodrow… ran over there and I went to fetch her. I know how much you don’t like Sam Moody, Your Honor. Me neither. I despise that man.”

“You’re lying,” Papa says. “I know Mother had been visiting with Moody on Tuesdays and that you girls went along with her in the rowboat. Maybe that’s why your sister ran off to the Triple S. Do you think that could be why, Shenandoah?” He asks that like he really does wonder why his wife sought comfort with another man and why his children liked spending time with him, too.

“That’s not true,” I say. “I think you got wrong information, Your Honor.”

“No, I didn’t.” Grampa and Uncle Blackie are smirking at me from across the table. Papa says, “I dropped a cuff link… I found your mother’s diary hidden beneath the bedroom floor. Did you know that she kept one?”

I lower my eyes, not able to stand the pain that I’m seeing in his. “Of course, you knew,” Papa says, so disappointed. “That’s what you were doing the other day up in my room, wasn’t it? Looking for her diary?”

“No… I…” His Honor holds up his hand in a stop, just stop, I-can’t-take-anymore-of-your-lies way. Sadness is tugging at the skin around his eyes, his mouth. He truly doesn’t understand. He bought all Mama’s clothes. Never let her out of his sight. Held her so tight.

Seeing him so dejected makes me want to brush the lock of hair that’s fallen onto his forehead back where it belongs. To kiss his tears away. How devastated Papa’s going to be when I testify at his trial. “Sam Moody did not murder my mother,” I’ll tell the court. “He couldn’t have. I was over at his place that night and he was there and not in the clearing behind our house where my mother was last seen alive. I don’t know why, but my father is lying, trying to make Sam seem guilty when he isn’t.” The family attorney, Bobby Rudd, will jump up and protest, but it’ll be too late. I will have done irreparable damage to my father. No matter what I told Curry earlier, I can feel my feet growing cold. I don’t think I can go through with it. As wrong as it would be to let Sam take the blame for something he didn’t do-I can’t betray my father. This little man, no matter what awful things he’s done, this runt of the litter is my papa.