Signs in the Blood (19 page)

“Yeah,” agreed Ben. “Common reaction. Whistling in the dark to keep from being afraid of the unknown.”

Laurel and Ben said good night and left; Laurel for her apartment in Asheville, Ben for his cabin. Elizabeth went to the computer to check her e-mail. Still nothing from Trent Woodbern, the Starshine dropout. She'd probably never hear from him. And something Laurel had said, in her usual offhand way just as she was leaving, had made Elizabeth wonder even more about the odd community on Hog Run Branch.

“By the way, Mum, I finally talked to Rolf about his ex-girlfriend, you know, the one who joined that star place. Well, he said that she was still there. He also told me that she was pregnant when they broke up and that he thinks that's why she went to the community.”

“So what happened to the child?” Elizabeth had asked.

“Oh, she had it and gave it up for adoption,” Laurel had replied breezily. “The folks at Starshine apparently arranged it all. But what really freaked Rolf out was this. He got to thinking about what a great model she had been and so went out there to see her recently, kind of wanting to get back together with her. So anyway, after going through this whole long thing with a guy at the gate, they finally let him in.”

“And he got to see her?” Elizabeth asked, intrigued.

“Absolutely, and she told him that she would never leave the community. She also told him that she was pregnant again.”

VI-O
CTOBER
1901

The onliest time that me and Levy had a bed for our lovin was them first two nights while Mister Tomlin was gone. Atter that we had to make do with the hard ground back up the mountain until Levy found a little cave back up under some big old rocks. The dirt there was soft and dry and Levy brung along an old quilt for us to lay down on and another to put over us when the weather begun to cool. I have said that Clytie was like a she-cat in season around the men and now I understand that hungerin. Many a day and night would go by before Levy and me would have the chance to slip off together and many a day and night I'd feel that hungerin risin up in me. I would've sent great cat yowls echoin all along the ridges and through the hollers iffen hit would have brought him to me.

For now I knew what Aetha was sayin when she told me that atter a while I'd like hit just fine. Though, with Levy, there weren't no atter a while to hit; I liked hit all to oncet. That first night when he come to the cabin, we both knowed what we was about the minute he clumb up on that big rock and stood there by me.

I held my hand up to him without sayin nothin and he raised me up and pulled me to him. He started to say something but I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him hard. Hit weren't no time atall afore I stood there naked in the starlight and both of us a-tryin to get his overhauls offen him as fast as ever we could.

Atterwards, when we was in the cabin layin on the bed, he seen the blood on my legs. Little Sylvie, he says, ain't you and him ever . . . and then he got quiet. I told him something of how it had been and how my daddy weren't no help and then I told him why I'd gone to Ransom that day.

Mister Tomlin ain't no husband to me, I told Levy, and if the law won't help me get shed of him, I reckon I'll just have to run away.

Hit was some time later and we was just layin on the bed watchin the moon begin to rise. We'd fallen off to sleep atter the second time but Levy knowed he couldn't stay with me the whole night. If he weren't down in my daddy's barn when the house began to stir, folks might begin to suspicion something. Levy was a-restin his head on my breast and I was a-twinin my fingers in his hair that in the moonlight looked silver instead of gold. Will you come back tomorrow night? I asked him. Mister Tomlin won't be back till the next evenin, if then.

I'll come back if nothing don't happen, he told me. But, Little Sylvie, we got to be careful and think about how to get you free. Was you just to leave and take up with me, we'd both be churched, at the very least, and most likely Tomlin and yore daddy they'd lay out to kill me. We got to be real careful and think what to do.

But seemed like all we could think of doin that summer was to lay down with each other ever chance we got. We did make a plan where if he could meet me up in the woods, he'd put a little white stone atop an old stump that was near our spring. Whenever I seen the white stone, I'd know he'd be waitin for me that night in a certain little holler up the mountain. And later on, like I said, he fixed us a place in the cave under the big rocks.

Levy was careful to stay clear of the cabin and I was right sure Mister Tomlin didn't know nothing about what Levy and me was doin. Mister Tomlin had me to do those same things to him sometimes at night but he still couldn't do no good atall. And he would still bring out that hateful old belt and kindly worry at me with it. But hit got to where most nights he'd just drink some of his medicine and fall asleep. I had seen that when he took that medicine he didn't never wake till the sun was full up so I knowed at those times that I could be with Levy for part of the night at least.

Hit seemed like to me that when I was with Mister Tomlin, I was like a plant just swivellin up for lack of water. And when I was with Levy, well, hit put me in mind of when me and Clytie used to play boats in the branch atter a big rain. We'd take us each a little stick and call hit a boat. Then we'd drop our boats into the rushin water and see how they did. Those little sticks would get caught in the swirlin, racin water and tumble over and over. Me and Clytie'd foller along on the bank of the branch just a-watchin the sticks bein swept along on their way to the river. When I was with Levy, I was like one of them sticks, pulled along and tossed to and fro by love. I was drownin in love and I didn't want no one to pull me out.

I reckon I could have talked to Aetha but she had enough troubles on her along of her new baby. Hit had been what Romarie had called a blue baby and when I had asked her about hit, Rom had squeezed her mouth in a tight straight line and said, Something's wrong with hit's heart. Aetha'll not raise that one. And then the babe had took the bloody flux, what they call the summer complaint, and Aetha was lookin so tired and worn herself, the few times I seen her, that I purely hated to lay any more worries on her. I had almost spoke, one September day when Mister Tomlin took me to see her atter church. Him and Fate was down at the barn lookin at Fate's team of Belgians and I was settin with Aetha while she nursed little Louammia. Afore I could begin my tale, she looked at me and said, Little Sylvie, hit eases my heart to see you lookin so bloomin. I got most all I can bear with this babe for doctor says she likely won't see year's end.

The tears was makin tracks down her face and she hugged the baby closer. I had seen first thing that hit didn't look right atall for hit's skin was grayish-like, not pink, and hit didn't seem to have the strength to suck but a little bit at the time.

So I just smiled and told Aetha I was right happy and told her about the quilt I was piecin.

By October I was most sure that I was in the family way. My monthlies hadn't come since July and my breastes was tender and startin to poke out. My belly was poochin out just a little and Mister Tomlin began to be ill with me. You're eatin too much, Little Sylvie, he said. Do you want to look like a fat old milk cow? And he would count the biscuits when we'd et our breakfast. I'll know if you sneak and eat any afore dinner, he would say. I want you to stay like you were when we married.

I knowed that the time would come when he would see that hit was more than biscuits got me this way and I set in to thinkin out a plan. I had seen a notice in one of the newspaper pieces that Aetha had give me for dress patterns and it had talked of cheap land and good jobs in Texas. A one-way ticket on the Southern Railway was eight dollars and fifty cents.

Next time we was able to meet I told Levy about this. I offered to take the money from Mister Tomlin's pocketful of double eagles whilst he was asleep but Levy wouldn't have none of it. Don't you see, Little Sylvie, he said, hit's bad enough me stealin you. Iffen I steal his money too, what kind of a man am I?

Levy said that he had it in mind to take a job in one of Mister Tomlin's loggin camps. That would be the fastest way he could earn enough to give us our new start in Texas. He said he'd likely be workin a ways off and wouldn't be able to get back to see me but ever now and again. I hadn't yet told Levy that I was likely carryin his child and I thought to wait yet another month to be certain sure.

Hit was a few days later that I went to the spring hopin to see the little white rock that meant Levy would be waitin for me that night. The rock weren't in its place but Levy hisself was standin there.

What are you doin? says I, Mister Tomlin's just down the road a-talkin to my daddy.

I had to see you afore I left, says he. I have to be on my way to the camp in Tennessee to start work tomorrow. If I'm not there, they'll hire someone else.

I wanted to bawl like a baby and I ached to hold him and tell him not to leave me. Levy seen it in my face and said, Now, Little Sylvie, don't take on. Hit'll not be long afore I earn enough to take us to Texas. He reached his hand in the pocket of his overhauls and brought out something all balled up in his fist. Close yore eyes, Little Sylvie, he told me real soft like and I could feel his hands brushin down on either side of my head. I opened my eyes and looked down. He had put the prettiest little gold heart on a glittery thin chain around my neck and was holdin out another one to me. I bought these off a drummer in Ransom, he said. Now you put this un on me to show that I am yore own true love. That way when I've gone off to the lumber camp you'll have something to put you in mind of me.

He bowed his head down to where I could reach to put the other necklace on him. I put my arms up around his neck and held him down so's I could kiss him. Then I took his hand and laid hit on my belly. I got plenty to put me in mind of you, Levy Johnson, I said. But I like us both wearin our little hearts for hit shows that we're a family.

Just then I heared the sound of coins a-jinglin and I jumped back from Levy. Right quick like I tucked the locket under my dress where it lay between my bosoms. I picked up the pails of water and said, Thank you kindly, but I can tote these just fine. Mister Tomlin just then come around the curve in the path and seen us there. He cut his eyes over at me real chill like. Get on with yore work, Little Sylvie, he said.

CHAPTER 15

W
HO
C
AN
U
NDERSTAND?
 (
T
HURSDAY)

W
HY THE HELL CAN
'
T HE GET AN ANSWERING
machine?” Elizabeth muttered as she dialed Hawkins's number yet again. She had tried unsuccessfully to reach him several times on the previous night. What Laurel had said about the twice-pregnant girlfriend had set off modest little warning bells, and she wanted Hawkins to know about it. Hawkins had told her when they spoke on Sunday that Janie had promised to finish the semester before joining the Starshine Community, so there was no hurry, she reminded herself. But she also wanted to tell him about the trout flumes and pond up in Little Man Holler. Could Cletus have been drowned there?
Dammit . . .
she thought, as the phone rang for the sixth time,
it would be nice if—

“Hawkins.” The voice in her ear startled her and, for a moment, she forgot the reason for her call.

“Phillip,” she managed to say, after an awkward pause, “this is Elizabeth Goodweather. I talked to my daughter about that community . . .”

Hawkins listened without comment to the story of the ex-girlfriend. When Elizabeth concluded, somewhat lamely, “I guess I just thought it was strange that she would go there, have a baby, give it up for adoption, and then get pregnant again right away.”

“Yeah, that is pretty crazy,” Hawkins agreed, “but who can understand women, especially at that age?” He laughed humorlessly. “At least I'm almost sure Janie's not pregnant. Sandy got her started on birth control way back. I didn't actually approve, but what're you gonna do?” Elizabeth could almost see his shoulders shrug.

“I did some checking around,” he went on, “the Internet, like you said, and some other places. The Starshine Community is actually pretty highly regarded in some circles—mainly people looking to adopt a healthy Caucasian infant. Evidently quite a few young women who go there to have their babies give them up for adoption.” He paused. “I don't blame them; the babies end up with two eager parents instead of one reluctant one, and the parents are always well-to-do. Do you know what it costs to adopt a baby these days?”

The conversation slid into generalities. Elizabeth told Hawkins about Cletus's funeral and her suspicions about the trout farm. Hawkins was disappointingly unimpressed by this revelation. Finally she mentioned Trent Woodbern, acknowledging that she had not yet heard from the young man. “But in case I do and if it's anything you ought to know, I'll call you right away.”

“Ah . . .” Hawkins said after a pause, “I may not be around much for the next few days . . . Maybe you could—”

“Oh, I'd forgotten,” said Elizabeth, “You've probably got to see about your aunt.”

There was a puzzled silence, “My aunt . . . ?” Hawkins said tentatively.

“Your aunt who lives in Shut In—the one you said you were here to see about . . . to see if she could manage living alone? Remember, you told me about her back when you first called? I forgot all about her till just now.”

There was another pause and then Hawkins replied in cheerful tones, “Oh, Aunt Omie? I didn't remember mentioning her to you. Yeah, I went to see her and she about ran me off the place when I started talking about assisted living. At first I wasn't sure she even knew who I was, but she remembered me all right
and
remembered the time, I must have been around fifteen, that I had tried to ride her milk cow. That old cow jumped over a barbwire fence and left me tangled up in it. Aunt Omie remembered it down to the day of the week: ‘Now, let me see, hit were a Tuesday fer I was churnin' when I heared the commotion.'”

He had slipped effortlessly and fondly into the mountain dialect, before returning to his own more educated and only slightly Southern accent. “Nah, she doesn't need any assisted living; that old lady could beat bears with switches. Maybe you'd go with me to see her some day. I think that you two would get along; you have a lot in common.”

“Thanks, I guess,” said Elizabeth.

An odd conversation, she decided as she hung up. Almost like talking to two different people. Hawkins had seemed unusually distant, not like the eagerly confiding person he had been on the night that they had dinner.
He's probably sorry he told me all that personal stuff and feels like he has to back off,
she decided. He had mentioned that he would be out of town for a few days and had said something vague about getting together when he returned.
Who can understand men,
she thought,
especially at that age?

After the strangely unsatisfactory conversation with Hawkins, Elizabeth decided to go in to Asheville for some much overdue shopping. She drove from store to store, checking off the items on the list in her head.
Stop here, find a birthday present for Sallie Kate; stop there, pick up some batting for that quilt top you've been meaning to finish.
Several hours went by and, after one last stop to buy far too many esoteric household products for the spring cleaning that she had been vowing to accomplish for the past two months, she was done.

Except for groceries on the way home. But now I think I deserve a little treat.
She found a parking place near her favorite used bookstore and told herself that she really shouldn't buy more than two books, as her shelves at home were already overflowing.
I'll just go look,
she decided,
maybe get a paperback to read while I eat lunch.
Glancing past the bookstore she could see that the little Japanese restaurant that had been a favorite of Sam's was still busy.

I'll take my time browsing,
she thought.
The lunch crowd should thin out before long.

Thirty minutes later, Elizabeth emerged triumphantly from the bookstore, clutching a vintage Vita Sackville-West gardening book and two scruffy-looking but still quite readable Tony Hillerman mysteries. She was smiling to herself in double anticipation of a good meal
—I wonder if they still have that garlic-seared tuna—
and three books to read.
Now if there will just be an empty table . . .

Through the window she could see that there were indeed several small tables standing empty. Then, something about the couple sitting just on the other side of the window caught her attention. The woman, tiny, dark, and very beautiful, was speaking rapidly and evidently unhappily, if the expression on her perfectly made-up features was any guide. The man's back was to her, but Elizabeth instantly recognized the broad shoulders and shiny brown bald head of Phillip Hawkins. When Hawkins reached out to pat the woman's hand, Elizabeth turned and walked back to her jeep.

“Well, that was stupid,” she muttered as she sat in her car in the parking lot of Back Yard Burgers with a Grazi burger and a lemonade.
But that place is so little, I'd probably have ended up sitting next to them and he might have thought . . . well, what would it matter what he thought? But who the hell was that he was with? Not good old Aunt Omie, that's for sure. And he said he didn't know anyone around here who was over twenty. Shut up, Elizabeth—so he makes friends fast.

She took a bite of her sandwich and the sauce from the burger ran down her arm and dripped on her shirt.

Elizabeth swung onto the bridge that crossed the French Broad River and led to Bear Tree Creek and Ridley Branch, happy, as always, to be nearly home. On seeing a truck stopped up ahead, she slowed to a more moderate pace. The black farm truck was pulled over to one side and a tall dark-haired man was leaning casually on the railing of the bridge. There was nothing unusual in this: the bridge was not heavily traveled and often there would be a car or truck parked to one side, its passengers fishing or watching the rafters and kayakers negotiate the rapids. Elizabeth herself had stopped many times to take photographs of the river, sometimes with the mists rising off it in the morning, sometimes of the great blue heron that haunted its shallows.

The man leaning against the railing straightened and casually stepped toward Elizabeth's oncoming car, holding up his hand for her to stop. As she braked reflexively, her inner, catty self purred,
Taller than Hawkins, much better-looking,
and
he has a full head of hair.

“Would you care to give me a jump, Miz Goodweather?” drawled Harice Tyler. “I been thinkin' you might come along. You know, they say three's a charm.”

Without waiting for her answer, the preacher produced jumper cables and opened the hood of his truck, calling to her, “If you don't care, just pull over a little and pop that hood, Miz Goodweather.”

She wordlessly did as he said and he soon had the two batteries connected. Then he climbed into the cab of his truck and turned the key; the truck started without hesitation. Harice's white smile flashed at her as he emerged from the pickup and sauntered toward her. “I thank you kindly, Miz Goodweather.”

Leaving the cables in place, he unhurriedly leaned down to her window. “When are you and Miss Birdie coming back to church?” he asked. “I told you there's always hope. We're meeting Saturday night; could be Aunt Belvy'll have another message for you.”

He was so close that she could smell him—a not unpleasant combination of sweat and something pungent like black pepper and cloves. He wore dirty work clothes and today there was no hair cream on the dark brown wavy hair that fell in a stray lock across his forehead. He was looking at her very intently, clearly waiting for an answer.

“Saturday? I don't know . . .” she hedged. “I'll have to see what Birdie—”

“You come, with or without Miss Birdie,” he insisted urgently. “Do you want, you can ride over with me.”

“With you?” she echoed in surprise. “Don't you live over in Tennessee?”

“Used to I did, but when my wife died last year, I come back over to Bear Tree to give my daddy a hand on the farm. My kids is all married and on their own and Daddy ain't able to do like he used to—”

“Your father,” Elizabeth interrupted. “I was wondering what your father thought about Dewey Shotwell's death?”

Tyler's eyes narrowed. “Now, Miz Goodweather, you hadn't ought to make nothing out of the way Daddy was carryin' on. Hit was just a game between him and Dewey, each one tryin' to do the other down. He didn't mean nothing by it.”

He smiled widely and went on, “Everyone knows the Shotwells is bad to drink. Could be ol' Dewey took his liquor down to the river to get away from his woman. There's a bunch of sinners like to go down to the bridge to do their drinkin'.”

His dark eyes surveyed the interior of her jeep. “Looks like you been grocery shoppin'.”

Elizabeth started, suddenly anxious that no chance passerby see her loitering here on the bridge with Harice Tyler, their vehicles joined like copulating insects. “Yes, I have, and I have some stuff that needs to get home and into the refrigerator. So if you don't mind—”

Harice Tyler smiled and straightened up. “All right, Miz Goodweather.” He removed the cables, gently shut the hood of her car, and stood aside, still smiling. “Saturday night, you remember now,” he called as she pulled away from him.

A thought hit her and she stopped her car and reversed. “I have another question for you,” she said. “Is there a pond up on Devil's Fork?”

Tyler laughed. “You're mighty interested in that place, ain't you? First the boomers, now you want to know about a pond. Now, it ain't what you'd rightly call a pond but they got kindly of a pit filled with water that they use in their training exercises. That what you was wondering about, Miz Goodweather?”

As she turned up Ridley Branch she could still see him in the rearview mirror, leaning on his truck and staring after her. She was mystified by Harice Tyler's apparent interest in her and not a little bewildered and annoyed by her own involuntary response to his sensual good looks and insinuating smile.
It almost seemed as if he was . . . was lying in wait for me; what did he say—‘Three's a charm'?”

She was just in front of Miss Birdie's house now, and with sudden resolution she braked and drove across the plank bridge to the cabin. The cars and trucks of family who had come to yesterday's funeral were gone now; only Miss Birdie's old pickup and Dorothy's ancient Fairlane were in sight. The monotonous murmur of the television could be heard from the house.

“Come right on in and get you a chair,” Miss Birdie called out. She and Dorothy were in the kitchen, evidently turning out and rearranging the cabinets. Or, rather, Birdie was sitting at the kitchen table directing Dorothy, who stood on a straight-backed chair pulling old medicine bottles and mason jars of various murky liquids out of the cabinet over the refrigerator.

“Me and Dor'thy lit into the kitchen first thing this mornin',” Birdie explained cheerfully. “Oncet all them folks had left, just seemed like we had to get busy.” She looked up, her bright eyes glittering. “Come hug my neck, Lizzie Beth.”

“Miss Birdie, it was a beautiful service yesterday.” Elizabeth bent to touch her lips to the old woman's wrinkled cheek. “I wish Rosemary could have gotten home for it; she dearly loved Cletus, too.”

“Birdie had her a beautiful letter from yore Rosemary,” interjected Dorothy from her perch, scowling at the label on a brown bottle half full of some clear liquid. “She surely writes a good hand; she's a teacher, ain't she?” Without a pause she continued, “Whatever is this mess, Birdie? It looks like ‘Pare—' something but the label is all faded.”

“Hit don't matter,” Birdie answered, “just throw it in the trash. No tellin' how long some of that medicine's been up there. Reckon there's some from when Luther was took so bad; might even be some older than that. Throw it all out, Dor'thy, I ain't got no need for any of it now.”

Dorothy obediently loaded the assortment of jars and bottles into a heavy garbage bag and placed it by the back door with several others. “Well, there's a job done,” she announced with satisfaction. “Now let's have us a glass of ice tea.”

As they sipped their tea, Dorothy leaned across the table to Elizabeth. “Birdie said you was askin' about that Little Sylvie Baker. Now my brother's wife was a Baker and I one time asked her right out about Little Sylvie. What she said was that Little Sylvie took up with Levy Johnson and them two took the baby and a bag of gold from Little Sylvie's husband and run off to Texas. She said that Little Sylvie's father crossed her name out of the family Bible.”