Cast a Road Before Me (26 page)

I was already winded. I slowed a bit, fell into a rhythm. The moon shone brightly, obliterating the stars. The after-midnight air hung hot and thick. I saw no cars, heard no sounds other than the soft flap-flap of my feet and the whooshing of my breath. By the second corner I could already feel sweat beading on my forehead. One sockless heel began to throb. The third corner was Main. When I reached it, I veered right, beginning the straight
shot through town that eventually would send me past the Bradleyville sign, over two long hills, and around numerous curves to the Riddums’ tree-lined driveway.

The quiet was eerie, like a sleeping dragon soon to be awakened. Trees and flower beds jerked by in peripheral vision, alternately lightened and shadowed by yellowed streetlights. I wondered at the silence, guessing whether it meant the men were still gathering or were long gone. The sound of a distant engine brought my head up, and I sucked in air, listening. Without slowing, I glanced over my shoulder to see a car turn onto Main—headed toward the mill. Air rushed from my lungs.

I saw the post office in the distance, its wooden bench out front gleaming golden and desolate under the moon. Long before I passed the building I was exhausted. I was only a half-mile from home, a half-mile often traversed by Aunt Eva in good weather. “You drive yourself to work today,” she’d say to Uncle Frank. “I’ll walk.” In time the post office clipped by, and I set my eyes on the next goal—the stoplight at Minton and Main. I watched it bouncing three blocks away, methodically changing from green to yellow to red, directing air.

My chest ached. Still, I could not think of stopping. Visions—both past and present—crowded into my head, visions I did not want to see. With conscious effort I blocked them, forcing thoughts of Cincinnati. In three days I would be gone. I longed for it, dreamed of it like a parched nomad dreams of water. With a jolt I realized I’d stopped praying to my guardian angel, so I whispered to her, seeking her strength. But I did not sense an answer, and my legs still ached. Then the visions crowded in again, tripping over themselves. I saw myself running the one other time in my life I’d covered any great distance. It had been summer then too, and hot, the midday sun without mercy. And then, as now, I ran with no other plan than to Get There, my legs pumping, my ragged breath singing a tuneless song of its own. Terror had driven me. That and a similar disbelief of what awaited.

I passed the intersection at Minton and Main, lost in a replay of that day eight years ago. At this moment on this silent and strange night, my weariness and my stumbling run—almost dreamlike—focused the memory acutely. Every jolt of my foot against pavement, every jagged breath, brought it back with numbing wholeness. I’d known then as I knew now that my running was futile, that I was an insignificant cog in a very big wheel that had spun off course.

The Bradleyville sign bounced by on my left. The sidewalk ended and I hugged the edge of the road, beginning the long climb of the first hill.

I’d climbed a long hill then too, leaving behind houses and sidewalks and life as I’d known it. Viewridge had been cliffed and winding, and my legs had turned to rubber, the hot sun’s fingers spindling down to squeeze my neck. Far up ahead, on some other plane, a blinding glare skidded off glass fragments and bent metal. Strangers were there, appearing from nowhere, stopping cars, banging doors shut, calling, yelling for a doctor, an ambulance. As I neared the scene, a voice, foreign and rasping, screamed,
“Mom! Mommeee!”
I flung myself, breathless and sobbing, toward her car, strangers’ arms reaching out, holding me back. “No, no, honey, you musn’t.”
“No, NO,”
I fought, flailing, straining, knowing my mother was dead, not
believing
she was dead. Couldn’t somebody just help, couldn’t somebody do
something!
Sheer obsession possessed me until I broke through their grasps and leapt for the car, which was battered and bent and horribly still. The crushed door clanked and knocked beneath my helpless beating but would not open its precious contents to me. They dragged me away again, overcoming me until the wrecker came with the fire truck and police and ambulance, dissonant sirens shrieking. Sobs wracked my body until my lungs threatened to collapse, my eyes run forever dry. I could not believe it; I
would
not believe what was happening. For days I would not believe it, could not grasp the stark reality even through the grim-faced policeman’s declaration, the consolations of neighbors, the funeral, the move to Bradleyville. I would not believe it because to do so was
to admit my mother had
left
me, had blithely made a fatal decision to drive away and leave me. Alone.

Why did you do it, Mom? I gasped as I neared the top of the first hill outside Bradleyville. Why did you have to go to Hope Center that day? I
told
you to stay home.
Why
didn’t you stay and rest? Look at what your decision to help others has
cost
me!

I started downhill, hitting the pavement with hard, robot-like strides. Somewhere along the way I had begun crying. The symmetry of motion now and eight years ago had cycled me back to then. I couldn’t be sure which crisis the tears were for. My cheeks were wet, nose dripping. I registered the sound of ragged sobs remotely, like a distant radio station fading in and out. I could hardly feel my body.

I would not have made it. I would have collapsed, for the weight of my crying dragged at what little reserve I had. The second hill loomed before me, oversized and impassable. My legs slowed. Then a crack of light split the road before me, spilling downward as a car crested the ridge behind. I jerked around, fear prickling my scalp, expecting to view a cavalcade, but I spied only one vehicle, racing toward me with abandon. I jumped into brush, awash in the car’s headlights, and froze. It caught up to me. A big car. It braked suddenly and stopped. A portly figure leaned over and yanked down the window.

“Jessie Callum? What on
earth
are you doin’?”

Relief crackled up my throat. “Mr. Lewellyn! What … where are you going?”

He gaped at me. “I’m goin’ out to Riddums’; where’re
you
goin’?”

“Oh,” I managed to say and then started to cry all over again, squeaky strangles of breath adding even more weirdness to this bizarre night. “Would you give me a ride?”

He unlatched the door and pushed it open. I fell inside, gasping, holding my ribs. The car surged forward.

“You run all the way out here?”

“Yeah, my car’s in the garage.”

“What
for?”

“Flat tire.”

He looked at me, a parent to an idiot child. “Jessie.
Why
are you out here?”

I sucked in air while trying to form an answer. How much to tell him? He wasn’t Thomas; never would be. “The men are on their way there. I guess you know that.”

He nodded impatiently.

“Thomas and Bill Scutch are already there. I have to tell them something.”

“Must be important.”

“It is.”

He obviously expected me to tell him too. He drove in reckless silence that I would not fill until the tilt of his shoulders displayed his disappointment. “Good thing I came along,” he said finally. “Don’t think you’d a made it.”

“No, Mr. Lewellyn,” I reassured him. “You saved me, no doubt about it.”

He braked quickly, throwing me forward, and screeched onto the Riddums’ driveway. I saw house lights in the distance.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he rattled, hunching over the wheel. “Saw a bunch a cars go by and knew somethin’ was up. Called Bill to see what I could do to help and got his wife. She said they was already out here.”

“How can they
do
this, Mr. Lewellyn?” I demanded. “How
can
they?”

He shook his head, his words clipped. “If we get through this, Jessie, maybe someday we’ll understand. For now, just remember one thing. God can use the worst times in life to teach us the most, if only we’ll listen.”

The meaning of his statement was buried under my own surprise. Even though he was in church every Sunday, I’d never heard Jake Lewellyn talk much about God. I wiped at my face with a sleeve.

“Oh, boy, look at that.”

I lifted my head, arm in midair. The Riddums’ long, white-columned porch sat awash in carriage lamplight. Five, no six, Albertsville police cars were parked haphazardly in front of the house and to the left. Bill Scutch’s car was farther aside.

“How did they know?” I gasped.

“Bill musta called ‘em for help,” he muttered, snatching his keys from the ignition. “Things’ve got to be bad for him to do that.”

He tried to hurry but his age and size slowed him down. Even in my weariness, I hit the porch before he’d clambered out of the car. “Thomas!” I shouted, banging on the door. “Thomas!”

Blair Riddum’s massive oak door swung open, and Thomas appeared in the threshold, forehead creased with tension and amazement. “Lord’s sake, Jessie! You cain’t be here! Jake? What y’all think you’re doin’?”

“I’m here to help you, ol’ man,” Mr. Lewellyn huffed, mounting the porch steps with indignance.

I stumbled over the entryway, fresh tears welling. “I have to tell you something, I just want to tell you something!”

“Okay, okay.” Thomas caught me under a trembling elbow and held me up, Bill Scutch hurrying to my other side. Mr. Lewellyn stepped inside, head held high, and looked around as if to summon his army. Blurred faces of uniformed policemen, billy clubs and guns attached to their waist belts, stared at him, then at me. There must have been at least a dozen, prepared for battle. The sight of them infused me with dread. My mouth flopped open, throat constricting. “I … I have to talk to you alone.”

Thomas half dragged me through the tiled hallway and onto plush blue carpet. “Sit here,” he ordered, nudging me into an armchair, then turned aside. “Let us be for a minute.”

I gazed up in confusion, wondering whom he was talking to. A flash of movement at the far end of the room caught my attention, and my eyes flew to its source. The man hesitated, frightened, like a deer caught in headlights, eyes boring into mine. He
was about fifty-five, average height, blond hair going gray. His cheeks were sunken, shadowed, and his lips thin.

My breath rattled to a stop.

Quickly he turned and was gone.

I faced Thomas, eyes wide. “Was that Blair Riddum?”

He nodded.

I might as well have seen a ghost. It could have been Satan himself for the horror that figure instilled in me. “I
saw
him, Thomas. The night of the fire, hiding in a neighbor’s backyard. It’s really true; Riddum did it. And now the men know it.”

Thomas’s face darkened. The fear in his expression terrified me. I never thought he would be afraid of anything. “How do they know?”

The lump in my throat would not be swallowed. “I didn’t mean to tell Lee. I
didn’t
tell him. But he saw it on my face. He was mad enough already. And then he took Uncle Frank with him!”

“Thomas!” Bill Scutch rounded the corner in a trot, grabbing the doorjamb. Mr. Lewellyn, as best he could, was hot on his heels. “They’re comin’.”

“Stay here,” Thomas pointed at me. He hurried to a double front window and drew aside a thick curtain. I followed close behind, peering over his shoulder. In the moonlight I could just make out a line of cars slowly cruising up the driveway, lights out. It was their slowness that was so frightening. Not rushing anger, quickly spent, but the steady, silent determination of vengeance demanded.

“God help us all,” Mr. Lewellyn mumbled.

Thomas let the curtain fall and put urgent hands on my shoulders. “Jessie, forget what you saw that night and listen to me. You’re not really sure who you saw anyway, are you. It was dark, right? And you saw someone. But you cain’t be sure who. So hear me when I say it wasn’t Riddum. He and his wife were at her aunt’s house. The old lady’s sick, and Esther Riddum’s still there now. You understand, Jessie? You hear me?”

I searched his face. Outside, the first car door slammed. His fingers jerked.

“Do you hear?”

My lips were trembling. “I hear.”

“Good.” He straightened. “Now. What to do with you.” I could see the wheels turning in his head. “Bates!” he hollered, and an Albertsville policeman quickly materialized. “Have one a your men take this young lady out the back door; it may not be safe in here for long. Tell him to go way out to the right side a the yard and follow it to the front, where he can watch and see if he’s needed. But until he’s needed he’s to stay with her, out a sight. Understand?”

“Thomas, I don’t need—”

“Hush, Jessie,” he snapped. “Stay with your policeman and keep away from things; I got enough to worry ‘bout. Now go.”

“Do as he says,” Mr. Lewellyn declared, his pudgy face mottling.

Bates motioned to a young stocky officer with a high forehead under a crew cut and a neck as thick as my thigh. All business, he took my arm firmly, pulling me toward the door. “No time to waste.” His face was grim, alert, his eyes snapping from the window to me.

“The rest a y’all,” I heard Thomas command, “stay outta sight in here until the last minute, like we talked about. Those men see the whites a your eyes, they’re gonna be mad as hornets.”

“There’s too many of ‘em,” Bates insisted. “We cain’t let you go out there alone.”

“I’ll go with him,” Mr. Lewellyn interjected.

I skidded to a stop, yanking away from my escort. “Thomas, don’t go out there by yourself! You can’t stop them!”

He threw us an irate glance. “Get her
outta
here!” He swiveled back to Bates, ignoring his old friend. “You don’t know these men like I do! I’m telling ya, you go out there right now and I guarantee you’ll have a fight on your hands.”

“That’s right,” Jake Lewellyn echoed.

My policeman reached for me again, irritated at being yelled at. “Let’s
go.”

I pivoted away. “No.”

“And I’m tellin’ you I have a job to do!” Bates shot back at Thomas.

The two men glared at each other.

Firm hands seized both my arms. “We’re gettin’ out of here
right now.”