Wiley Cash - A Land More Kind Than Home

The knob turned real slow, and the door almost didn’t make a sound when he opened it, but I saw that little bit of light from the hallway come into the bedroom and shine on the window, and I laid there on my side as still as I could with my back to the door. I could hear Daddy breathing from where he stood out in the hall.

“Jess,” he whispered.

I didn’t say nothing, and I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.

“Jess,” he whispered again. “You asleep?”

I still didn’t say nothing, but I could hear him breathing and I knew he was still standing there looking at me. Then I heard him close the door just as quiet as he’d opened it. There wasn’t any more light coming from the hallway, and my bedroom was just as dark as it was before.

My daddy walked back down the hall to the kitchen, and I heard him pick up the bottle off the counter and unscrew the lid, and then I heard him sit it back down. He opened and closed the cabinet, and then he ran water in the tap and turned it off. I heard him pick up the bottle again. I turned over on my other side, and I could see a little bit of light from the kitchen coming in under my door. I imagined Daddy in there leaning up against the counter and drinking out of that bottle and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. I lay in my bed and listened to him in there, and then I heard something real soft and I couldn’t figure out what it was. I held my breath and listened hard, and when I did I realized that what I could hear was the sound of Daddy using the broom and the dustpan to sweep up those little pieces of glass off the floor.

IDROVE BACK FROM THAT MEETING WITH CHAMBLISS AS SCARED as I’d ever been in my entire life. Even though my windows were down and the air poured into my car, I couldn’t hear nothing except for the rattle inside my head, the sound of it coming from deep inside that dark box where Chambliss had held my arm and echoing off the walls of the empty church. Its musty smell clung to my clothes like tobacco smoke, and the soft skin on the underside of my arm still crawled with the fear of being struck by its fangs. I prayed to God that I’d find Julie at home.

But I know what an empty house looks like, and I know you can almost feel it when you see it. I knew from the road that I wasn’t going to find her inside when I got in there, but that didn’t stop me from going from room to room and hollering her name. I went back out through the front door into the yard and around to the back of the house and called her and called her, and that’s when I saw just how dark that sky had gotten. I stood out there in the backyard and felt that wind picking up, and I heard the thunder take to rumbling way off over the mountain. The air just changed all of a sudden, and I felt strange out there all alone with it getting so dark like that and the wind picking up and bending those tree limbs and tearing off those leaves. It felt ominous to me, like something was about to happen that I wasn’t quite prepared for.

I went back inside the house hoping that she’d come in while I was outside, but I knew she hadn’t. I walked into the kitchen and stood there at the counter and crossed my arms and looked out across the yard and up to the road like I thought I might see her coming down it, but she wouldn’t come no matter how long I looked. I’d had me a red rotary phone put in there by the door, and I stood right there and stared at it and thought about what I should do. I thought about calling the sheriff, but I couldn’t think of just what I’d tell him, and I knew better than to call over to Ben’s and stir up trouble if Julie was over there.

No, Addie , I thought, there ain’t nothing for you to do but pray , and that’s just what I did. I walked into my room and dropped down on my knees right there by the bed, and I folded my hands and called on the Lord. Now, I can’t say just what I prayed for and I can’t say exactly how I asked the Lord to go about delivering it, but I can say that I haven’t prayed for nothing else so hard in all my life.

I stayed there on my knees just like that, right there by the bed, even when I felt that dark gathering all around me and that wind picking up and those big, heavy drops of rain coming down on the roof above me.

WHEN I OPENED MY EYES, IT WAS PITCH BLACK IN MY ROOM, AND I realized that I’d gotten up onto the bed somehow and pulled the quilt up over me. I laid there for just a bit and listened to that driving rain and wondered how long I’d been asleep, and then I heard just about the most awful banging on the door, and I knew then the banging was what had woken me up.

I kicked the quilt off me and put my feet on the floor and saw that I still had on my shoes. I went over to the bedroom light and turned it on and listened. Whoever was at the front door must’ve seen that light come on, because they took to banging even louder. I walked into the front room and pulled back the curtain on the window by the door, and that’s when I saw that Ben Hall’s truck had been driven right up through the yard and into the grass. He’d cut clear across the driveway and just kicked up all kinds of mud.

“Open this door, Miss Lyle!” I heard him holler out there over that storm. I turned on the floodlights and looked out the window again, but I couldn’t see him. I put the chain on the door and turned the lock and opened it up. When I did, he tried to push the door open and come inside, but the chain kept the door from opening far enough to let him in.

“Where’s Julie?” he asked.

“She ain’t here,” I told him. “I don’t know where she’s at.” He stuck his arm through the crack in the door and tried to unhook that chain, and I slapped at his hand and tried to push his arm back out.

“Stop that, Ben,” I said. “I ain’t letting you in here.” He pulled his arm out and put his face right up to mine through the crack, and when he did I could smell that liquor on his breath and I knew he was drunk for sure.

“Where’s she at?” he asked.

“I’ve done told you,” I said. “I don’t know.” He tried to stick his arm back through to mess with the lock again, but I closed the door on his hand before he could get it in there good. He hollered and pulled it back out. I cracked the door again and looked out at him. “I’m going to call the sheriff,” I said. “You’re drunk, Ben. You need to go on home. You can talk to Julie tomorrow if she’ll see you.”

“You tell her I know,” he said. “You tell her I know what she’s been doing. I know what happened.”

“Go home, Ben,” I said. He just stood there like he was fixing to leave, and then he slammed his shoulder up against the door so hard that I thought he’d torn it off the frame.

“Stop it!” I hollered. “I’m calling the sheriff!” He got quiet after that, and then he put his face back in the crack and looked right in at me.

“You tell her I’m going to kill him,” he said.

“You can tell her yourself tomorrow,” I told him. “You need to go on home. I’m calling the sheriff. I mean it, now.” I closed the door and turned the lock, and then I went back to the window and looked out at the rain. I knew he hadn’t moved off the porch yet, and I stood there until I saw him stumble down the steps into the yard. He was drunk as he could be, and once he got down there he slipped and fell on his backside in that wet grass. I watched him until he got inside his truck and backed it up in my yard and tore off through the grass and kicked up even more mud onto my windows. I stared out at his taillights until I couldn’t see them anymore, and then I turned off the floodlights and checked the deadbolt and the chain to make sure he wasn’t getting inside if he came back.