Burying the Honeysuckle Girls (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-Two

October 1937

Sybil Valley, Alabama

Howell marched the whole way home from the revival in silence, his hand on Jinn’s back. Walter and Collie fell into a somber line behind their parents.

The foursome followed the gravel road that led from the church past the feed store and the general store and the firehouse. When they passed the turnoff for the schoolhouse, Jinn held her breath. Her blood beat so hard, she could hear it in her head. She kept walking, through town and up the fern-choked path to their cabin.

On the front porch, Howell collapsed into one of the rocking chairs. He stared off into the darkness, a hank of blond hair falling into his eyes.

Jinn shooed Walter and Collie inside. “Bed.”

They obeyed. Or at least, she thought they had, until a few minutes later when Walter reappeared, holding her daddy’s .22 rifle in front of his chest like a grim child soldier.

The boy looked at his father. “It ain’t right for somebody like him to come up here, all up on his high horse, telling us how we ought to do things. We ought not allow him to shame us like that.”

Howell bolted up.

“Get back inside, Walter,” Jinn said quickly, before Howell tore into the boy. “And put that gun in the cabinet.”

Walter acted like he hadn’t heard a thing. His eyes were fixed on his father’s face. After a few long moments, Howell spoke.

“Go on, boy.” His voice sounded thin and tired.

Walter turned and disappeared inside the house, and Howell settled back in his rocker. Jinn rested one hand on the doorjamb.

“Why’s he got Daddy’s gun?” she finally asked.

“Vernon gave it to him. He thought it was time. The boy’s grown now.”

There was no arguing with that. But, all the same, Jinn felt that somehow time had sped up, a river current after the spring melt. Everything was happening faster than it should. She wondered if Tom and Willie were still at the schoolhouse. Waiting and hoping she was going to come. She wondered if there was still a chance for her and Tom.

But she shouldn’t think about that.

God had done a miracle and made Howell right.

She took off her sweater and dropped it on the other rocking chair. Rested one hand on her chest. The night was soft, a velvety fall mountain night, the warmest she’d ever felt. The breeze was like a caress across her neck.

“What did you say to him?” Jinn asked. “To Brother Jarrod?”

He sighed. “I said I had been a weak man. A bad husband.” His voice had an unsteady quality to it, which gave her a peculiar sense that there was something just ahead of them, something large and terrible, out in the distance, waiting to engulf them. “I told him I knocked you around.”

“Well,” Jinn said.

He was quiet for a moment or two longer. “I didn’t tell him all of it. I didn’t tell him the worst part.” He peered into the darkness, like there was something to see in it. “I haven’t been strong with you, Jinn, not in the way a husband should. I’ve let you run wild, and I haven’t done nothing to stop it.”

Jinn felt a sensation like the porch was tilting under her. She gripped the doorjamb.

“Your daddy warned me. He went through this with your mama, so he knows. But I didn’t listen.” She was quiet. “You’re planning to take that money and run off with Tom Stocker, aren’t you?”

She flushed hot, then went dead cold. “Who said that?”

“It don’t matter, Jinn. Your daddy don’t like how this kind of talk reflects on the family.” He spoke in a low voice. “The thing is, I can’t have it. I got to do my duty as a man and a husband.”

He stood. They were face to face, but he seemed to tower over her.

“I told Brother Jarrod and God that I vowed to be a better husband, and that’s what I aim to do. I’m going to do what’s right for this family, Jinn. So you’ll be off to Pritchard in the morning.”

Right before bed, when Howell went out back to wash up, Jinn slipped out the front door. She flew across the yard, clattered down into the cellar, and took the last bottle of honeysuckle wine. She didn’t want to leave it behind for Howell to smash.

It had been some time since the altar call. An hour, at least. But maybe Tom was still at the school. She hugged the bottle to her chest and ran, her breath ragged in her ears, all the way back down to town. When she veered into the schoolyard, she saw it was deserted. Tom and Willie had already gone.

She stood frozen in the dark.

Now she’d have to run back up Old Cemetery, right past the path to her cabin, to get to Tom’s house. By that time, though, Howell would be waiting for her at the head of the path, her case packed for Pritchard.

But what else could she do?

She walked around the side of the school, and what she saw nearly made her faint. There was a woman, dressed in white, languidly leaning against the metal railing of the steps. She was smoking.

“Lord,” Jinn gasped.

“Hey there,” the woman said. “What are you doing out here this time a night?”

Jinn took a step forward, into the light of the moon. It was Dove Jarrod, the preacher’s wife. Now that she was closer, Jinn could see Dove was no more than a teenager. Seventeen or eighteen, at the most.

“I’m . . . just out for a walk,” Jinn said.

“Me too.” Dove smiled and took a deep drag of her cigarette. “How’s your husband feeling?”

“Oh. Good, I guess.”

“The Holy Spirit will flat wear you out with all that convicting of sin.” She released a plume of smoke from her red lips. “What’s his big secret? He got a chippie in Chattanooga? Or is he a pansy? You know, at the Ballyhoo in Chicago the men dance with each other in French silk peignoirs.”

Jinn didn’t know what to say about pansies or chippies or peignoirs, nor was she exactly clear on what any of those things were. She had to get going. Tom’s house was a ways away. Howell might’ve even gone up there already to look for her.

“What you got there?” Dove asked, nodding at the bottle of wine.

Jinn looked down. She had forgotten about it.

“Let’s see that.”

Jinn handed over the bottle.

Dove studied the label. “Honeysuckle, hm. You’re Jinn, I take it?”

Jinn nodded. “Jinn Wooten.”

Dove smiled at her. “Dove Jarrod. Let’s drink it.” She unscrewed the cap and tipped the bottle into her mouth. “Oh, that’s good, Mrs. Wooten. You’ve got a talent. You really make it with honeysuckle?”

“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Well, excuse me, but I got to get going.”

“Where you off to?”

Jinn toed the dirt.

“I get it.” Dove smiled. “Don’t want to talk about it. Makes me awful curious, though. Awful curious. Your husband know where you are?”

Jinn didn’t answer.

“Hm. I’m going to say . . . no, he doesn’t.”

Jinn realized her hands were trembling. She clasped them behind her back.

Dove smiled. “There’s trouble between you two, isn’t there?” She took another sip and narrowed her eyes at Jinn, like she was studying on something. “Don’t be embarrassed about it. I could see that earlier, in the meeting. I could see it just by looking at you two. Just taking a shot, but I’m going to say . . . you’ve had it up to here with his catting around, and tonight, you’ve finally decided to run off. Is it with another man? Is that why you came here, to meet the other man?”

Jinn blinked in shock. “How’d you know?”

Dove widened her eyes. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”

“How?”

“Witness of the Holy Spirit.” Dove tapped the ash off her cigarette. “None of my business, but if I was you, I wouldn’t go after that man. Not tonight.” She sucked on her cigarette again and blew out a cloud of smoke. “He’s not here, which means either he’s changed his mind or something went wrong. Either way, it’s no good.”

Jinn felt her face grow warm. The Holy Spirit certainly didn’t seem to mind telling folks’ secrets. She wondered if He had told her about Pritchard too. Her face burned now, thinking about it.

“If it was me,” Dove continued, “and I’m saying this in the strictest hypothetical sense, because I’ve never done anything like this, I’d let the dust settle a bit first before you gave it another try.”

“I can’t go home,” Jinn said.

“Well, running off in the night all by yourself isn’t the way to go about it. And standing here in the schoolyard with a bottle of wine makes you look guilty as hell.”

Jinn blinked at the word
hell
.

Dove pushed off the railing. “As it happens, I myself am going out to do an errand. If you’d like to come along, I wouldn’t mind it, not atall.”

Jinn looked up the road, then back at Dove. She was right. Tom would wait for her, she knew it. He loved her. She’d let things settle with Howell, then they’d make another plan.

“How about it?” Dove said. “If anybody tries to say you were running off, I’ll vouch for you. Say you came with me to do the work of the Lord.”

“Where are we going?”

“Good question.” She closed her eyes. Inhaled. “I’m thinking . . . up the mountain. That way.” She pointed behind the school.

Jinn realized her heart had slowed and the trembling had stopped.

“What’s the errand?” she asked. She found she was genuinely curious now.

But Dove just shrugged. “That’s the fun of it. I never rightly know ’til I get there.”

They walked—through the schoolyard and up the mountain path. Up into the thick woods, past the place where Tom had showed her the dead calf. Eventually, they stepped out of the woods and onto the open slope of the mountainside. Jagged stumps dotted muddy slides where the lumber companies had swept through, sawing down trees and skidding the logs down to the stream.

“Who lives in that house?” Dove pointed to the next hill over, where the moon shone on a tiny cabin ringed by more stumps.

“The Tippetts,” Jinn said.

“They have a girl?” Dove’s silk dress glowed against the mountainside. She looked like a ghost up there on the ridge, the trees her haunted backdrop.

“The youngest,” Jinn said. “Vonnie.”

The Tippetts’ house was a pathetic place, a shanty made with odds and ends of boards that had mostly rotted through and looked wet all the time. Dove skipped right up the sagging front steps and knocked on the door. It swung open, revealing Mr. Tippett, a gaunt man, yellow from many years of drinking moonshine and clinging for dear life to the damp mountain.

“Good evening, sir.” Dove’s bright voice rang out in the night. “I’ve come to see your daughter.”

At the foot of the steps, Jinn cringed. Everybody knew the Tippetts were involved in bad business, that one of the pale sons had once threatened a forest ranger with a hatchet. She was pretty sure Dove would set Mr. Tippett on edge, but he was just staring at her blankly.

“I’m Charles Jarrod’s wife,” she said. “We missed you at the meeting tonight.”

Jinn’s heart smashed against her ribs. Would Mr. Tippett have heard anything about Howell sending her to Pritchard? Would he know her husband was out looking for her now?

“Well . . .” Mr. Tippett shifted a fraction and peered down at Dove, taking in the dress, the lipstick, the hair.

“You know Charles Jarrod, the evangelist?”

“I heard a him.”

“I know you’d a been there tonight with the rest of them if it hadn’t been for your girl. She’s a handful, right? Stubborn? Lazy?”

Jinn thought she detected a hint of twang in Dove’s voice. Maybe this was her way of buttering folks up, taking on their way of talking.

“Somebody say something to that fact?” Mr. Tippett’s eyes fell on Jinn. She shrunk down a little, wishing the shadows would swallow her.

“Oh, no,” Dove said. “I got the message direct.” She pointed up, and Mr. Tippett followed her finger, stared up at the soggy, overhanging roof. “If you’ll let me in, I can give her the Word of the Lord and straighten her right up.”

“She won’t listen to you,” Mr. Tippett said. “She’s hard.”

Jinn felt a tendril of fear snake through her. She wondered if she could just turn and run, let the darkness of the mountain swallow her. But before she could consider it further, Dove motioned to her to follow.

Dove had suggested Mr. Tippett stay on the porch, and, meek as a lamb, he obeyed. The girl, no more than fourteen, was in the back bedroom curled into a crescent on a narrow iron bed. In her hands she held a handkerchief, knotted and wet from perspiration. She looked up at Dove when the women entered the room, her face puckered in a focused way Jinn instantly recognized.

“Jinn?” she said between clenched teeth.

“Hey, Vonnie.”

“I’m Jinn’s friend,” Dove said and sat on the bed beside Vonnie, being careful not to jostle her. “Have you passed it yet?”

“No. How’d you—?”

“How long has it been?”

“I been bleeding for seven days.” The girl looked quickly at Jinn, then back to Dove, in confusion. “I told my pap it was regular female trouble. Did he send for you?”

“No. He doesn’t know anything about the baby, and you have my word he won’t,” Dove said. “Can I put my hands on you?” Dove asked, and the girl nodded. “Jinn, come here,” Dove said. Jinn kneeled beside the bed, right at the girl’s head. “Put your hand on her.” Jinn rested her fingertips on the girl’s thin arm. “No,” Dove said. “Her stomach.” Jinn slid her fingers down until she could feel Vonnie’s flat stomach. The girl winced.