Signs in the Blood (23 page)

She felt her body begin to tremble, and she shifted her weight forward as if to rise. Harice's eyes were locked with hers and seemed to be pulling her toward him. She hesitated, balanced there on the razor edge between reason and faith. Then, with a feeling of indefinable loss, she slid back in her seat and looked down.
No,
she thought,
no, not for me.

It was almost midnight before she was on her way back over the mountain to North Carolina and home. Harice Tyler had escorted her to her car and promised to go with her the next day to the militia compound to ask about Ursa. He'd lingered beside her car and finally had said, “You hadn't ought to fight the Lord. I could see you was thinkin' about handlin' tonight. The Lord, He'll keep atter you iffen He wants you.”

Then he'd stepped back abruptly and given her car a dismissive slap. “See you tomorrow, Miz Goodweather.” As she drove off, Elizabeth had glimpsed the young woman who had danced with the snake, loitering purposefully by Harice Tyler's truck.

The road was dark and winding. Anonymous houses gave way to pitch-black fields and pastures, then the wooded slopes of the mountain road that would take her back to North Carolina. Elizabeth drove almost automatically while she struggled to make sense of the events of the evening. She was startled by her response to the service, her pleasure at being accepted so warmly by most of the congregation
—They called me Sister Goodweather!—
and her fleeting desire
—Where did that come from, Elizabeth?—
to take up a serpent.

“So what have I learned tonight?” she asked herself as she turned onto the road that would take her home. “Aside from the fact that I have fantasies about a snake-handling preacher with bedroom eyes.” She slowed to let a possum amble across the road. “Aunt Belvy said to keep looking in the rocks and dens of the mountains, and I'm going to do that. And then there was all that stuff about two joined in blood and water. Could she have meant that Dewey Shotwell and Cletus were killed by the same person? And there was something about a false prophet—that could mean the militia people or . . . or Polaris . . . or . . .”

In bed at last, well after two, Elizabeth had trouble falling asleep, a rare thing for her. She had read till her eyes were burning with weariness and had finally turned out the light. She lay there exhausted, willing sleep to come so that she could stop reliving the events of the evening.
If only I had a sleeping pill or some—what was that stuff the doctor gave us when Rosemary was teething and would scream for hours? It would put her to sleep when nothing else would do.
She punched her pillows into a more comfortable lump and turned on her side.

Paregoric, that was it. Worked like a charm. But I think they had quit prescribing it by the time Laurel was born. Too dangerous in an overdose.

As she was sinking into sleep an image drifted through her mind—a brown bottle half full of a clear liquid. The torn and faded label had read “Pare—” and Miss Birdie had said, “Throw it out, Dor'thy. I ain't got no need for it now.”

VIII-J
ANUARY
1902

The weather turned bitter cold and I spent my days sewin to make ready for my babe. Mister Tomlin had brung me a bundle of birdseye for hippins and some lengths of domestic and outing to make little gowns. Whilst I sewed I thought of Levy and wondered would I hear from him. I wondered did he even know I carried his child for I hadn't gotten a chance to tell him that last time we was together. I had been namin to when Mister Tomlin come up on us.

Atter I had finished with the gowns, I decided to piece a quilt for the baby. Aetha had give me a pattern called World Without End and I used my scraps to cut out the little pointy pieces in blue and white. I was gettin so big that hit pained my back to bend over the sewin machine for too long so I pieced my babe's quilt by hand. They was twenty five blocks to piece and I told myself that I would piece one every day and Levy would send word to me before I finished the twenty fifth.

Mister Tomlin didn't touch me no more. I believe that he was sickened by the sight of my belly. He stayed gone right much of the time and when he come home, he mostly et his supper and went to bed. He drunk that medicine most ever night now and snored till mornin. Now and again he would say something hateful, but he never offered to touch me.

When I had finished the twenty fifth block and still no word from Levy, I made up my mind to walk over the mountain and ask for news of him from his folks. I feared to wait much longer for I was swellin like one thing. Rom had said that my babe would likely come in April and Rom was generally right about such matters. She was reckoned to be a right good hand at catchin babies and had been with Aetha for all of hern, as well as helpin one and another of the women on the branch when their times had come.

Hit was a bright clear day and no wind. Mister Tomlin had gone to Ransom atter lamp oil and wicks and wouldn't be back til nigh dark. I dressed in my wool skirt and two outing petticoats and took a baccer stick to help me climb. The ground was hard froze with only a skift of snow on it but hit felt plumb good to be outside, walkin up the mountain past the places where me and Levy had laid down and swore to love one another true. I couldn't climb like I used to but before too very long I was a-standin on the top of the mountain and lookin down at the homeplace and over to the Gentrys' fields beyond. Down the other side I could see the Johnsons' cabin and barns. There was a woman makin her way to the spring, but I couldn't tell if hit were Levy's mother or one of his sisters.

Standin there under that clear blue sky and breathin in the clean cold air made me think Heaven must be like this. I could see where Bear Tree Creek run and Ridley Branch and I could trace where the French Broad snaked through the valley at the foot of the Walnut Mountains. I could see the houses of Dewell Hill and far, far off to the southeast there was a smudge that Levy had told me was Asheville. I thought that my mother in Heaven was likely lookin down on the world in just this same way and I wondered if she knowed hit was me atop Pinnacle Mountain.

I looked up at that blue sky and said, Mommy, hit's yore Sylvie what you borned right afore you went up there. I wish you was here, you and my brothers. I'm in kindly of a fix just now but I reckon hit'll all come right in the end. Then I waved my hand and blowed some kisses up in the air. They weren't hardly a sound but for the bell on old Poll in the pasture behind the homeplace far below.

It come to me how foolish I must a looked so I quit my loaferin and slipped through the scuttle-hole there by the gap. I like to stuck in it what with my belly, but I squeezed through and hit the trail that the cows had made. While I went, I thought about what I would say to Levy's folks.

When I come to the spring I stopped and got me a drink with the dipper gourd that was hangin from a nail on the big oak just above the pool. They was a skim of ice atop the water but a place was broke out to one side where a path led down to the pool. The little stream that run out of the pool and down the hill was sparklin in the sun and ice was on the rocks like a thousand stars.

I seen someone lookin out a window in the house below me so I put the dipper back and hollered out, Hello, the house.

Atter a while the door opened and Levy's sister Mabel called out for me to come in and warm. Thank you kindly, I said as I climbed the steps. I'd be grateful to set a spell.

Inside the house Miz Johnson was by the fire spinnin at her great wheel. She has a big loom out in a barn shed and she is the best weaver anyone ever seen. Well, Miz Tomlin, she says, what in the name of goodness be you doin out in this cold air and you with child? She reached for her spit jar then she said, I reckon you best pull off them things and come and warm. She didn't say no more but went back to her spinnin, that wheel a-creakin like a cricket with every round. I could see that Miz Johnson weren't none too pleased to see me and I wondered iffen she had suspicioned aught about me and Levy.

Why, says I, I was like to smother in that little cabin and I just took a notion that I'd like to go a-roamin for a piece. Likely hit'll be my last chance for some time. And then when I got up to the top of Pinnacle and seen your chimbly smoke I just thought I'd come pay a visit to you uns.

Miz Johnson didn't say nothing, just lifted her eyebrows and went on spinnin but Mabel spoke right up, Why, we are proud to see you, Little Sylvie. I don't reckon we've laid eyes on you since your marryin. Now, Levy said he seen you a time or two when he was workin for your daddy but—

How is Levy doin? I ask, not lookin at either of them but liftin my foot to the fire to warm. I believe Mister Tomlin said he went to Kentucky? Do you hear from him any?

We ain't heared nothing and don't look to, says Miz Johnson, sharp-like and spinnin right on. Levy's gone to work hard and better himself. Mister Tomlin said did Levy do a good job, he was namin to make Levy a boss and give him a house to live in. I reckon he'll find him a wife there in Kentucky, says she, spinnin on. Ain't so many single girls around here. And she cut her eyes over at me and I seen that she knowed or maybe just guessed.

You warm yoreself, Miz Tomlin, says she, and then you'd best hit for home. A married woman in your state oughtn't to be a-wanderin the mountains. Yore husband'll not thank you an you bring his babe to harm.

I felt my eyes fill up and I wondered would she have been lovin to me had Mister Tomlin never come along and had me and Levy courted and wed. I reckon she would have. I think what made her so ill was fear for Levy. I believe that she was happy to have him well away from me where she didn't have to worry about Mister Tomlin maybe shootin him down as he rode along.

Thank you for the warmin, Miz Johnson. I'll just take my leave now, I says, and I wrap my shawl back around me. I quick make for the door afore I bust out a-cryin. That wheel's a-creakin steady behind me and seems like I won't never get its sound outten my head.

Mabel opens the door for me and steps out on the porch, closin the door behind her. Little Sylvie, she says, Levy talked some about you and—

Just then Miz Johnson hollers, Mabel, you come back in the house! and Mabel gives me a tight hug and whispers, He's in a place called White Oak. You be careful, Little Sylvie.

The climb back up Pinnacle seemed steeper than I remembered and I got to cryin so hard I couldn't hardly catch my breath. I kept thinkin on Levy in Kentucky and wonderin iffen he might be lovin some other girl. When I got to the mountaintop I was in deep despair and I thought to pull off my clothes and lay down under the sky and freeze to death. I was so crazy with wantin Levy that I pulled off my shawl and flung hit down and started in to undoin my shirtwaist. Then I saw that little gold heart he give me, glintin there between my breasts. I minded how he had said that he was my own true love. Just then the baby kicked like one thing and I knowed that I must bide till the babe was born and I was strong again. Iffen Levy hadn't sent word by then, I vowed, me and the baby would go to Kentucky and find him.

CHAPTER 19

S
UNSHINE AND
D
OGHOBBLE
 (
S
UNDAY)

E
LIZABETH SPRANG OUT OF BED, REALIZING THAT SHE
had slept far longer than usual and that she would have to hurry if she was to meet Harice Tyler at ten.
God, I hope we can find Ursa
ran through her mind, then she altered the thought to
Please, let us find Ursa.

She dressed quickly in her usual jeans and work shirt and tried once again to reach Phillip Hawkins to tell him about the message from Trent Woodbern. Still no answer. She banged down the phone in frustration.
Okay, Elizabeth, if you ever
do
get hold of the man, will you also tell him about the bottle of medicine Dorothy threw out?

She cut a thick slice of bread and microwaved a cup of tea, her mind busy with an unpleasant scenario.
They could have been in the truck and she could have given him enough paregoric to make him sleep really soundly—probably in a Pepsi. She told me how they'd always get a Pepsi as a treat when they went to town. She could have timed it so he was still asleep when it was good and dark and then driven to the trestle, driven out on it a little way and opened the door. She could have shoved him out . . .

She shuddered and put down her tea and bread, untasted.
Birdie couldn't have done that, not to her only child,
she argued silently. But then she remembered how Birdie had shot her own beloved watchdog when it had been discovered killing a neighbor's lambs. “Couldn't you find another home for him away from here or keep him tied up?” Elizabeth had begged and Birdie had answered, tight-lipped and implacable, “What kind of life would he have tied up all the time? Naw, hit'll be quick and he'll not suffer and then I won't have to worry about how somebody else might do him.”

And she knew she didn't have much longer and she knew Cletus couldn't be happy in an institution somewhere. That must be it. And all that getting me to drive her around and looking for his shotgun . . . was she just playing a part and now she's too tired and sick to keep it up? Dorothy said Birdie only has a few months to live. And as far as the sheriff's concerned it was an accident. So what would be the point of my saying anything about it to anyone?
She felt a dull weariness as she prepared for her trip to Devil's Fork.

Harice Tyler was waiting, leaning against his truck when she reached the turnoff to Little Man Holler. “Naw, hit'd look better was you to ride with me,” he said when she stopped to pick him up. “Just pull yore car up our road a piece. Won't nobody bother it.”

She put up her windows and locked the jeep, then climbed into the cab of Tyler's pickup, after a hasty glance to confirm that there were no snake boxes and no suspicious burlap bags lurking inside. She realized that Tyler was watching her and saw an amused look come over his face. “You don't have to worry about ridin' with no snakes, Miz Goodweather. Don't nobody have to mess with serpents until they feel the Spirit move on them.”

He got into the driver's seat and they started up Bear Tree Creek. “What did you think of the service last night?” he asked her.

She looked out the window of the truck, enjoying the brilliant sunshine slanting down into the narrow valley of Bear Tree Creek. The trees still wore the bright yellow-greens of spring and early summer and the air was scented with the heady smell of leucothoë blossoms—“doghobble,” the mountain folks called it. Years ago she and Sam had decided that the doghobble bloom smelled like lovemaking and that its pungent fragrance was a signal for all wild things to come in heat.

“I liked it,” she said, realizing that he was waiting for an answer. “I felt very . . . very welcomed.” This seemed inadequate and she went on, “It was so different from the church I grew up in, and I don't mean just the snakes. The whole thing, how close everyone seems to God and to each other. It seemed so . . . real.”

“Hit is real,” he replied.

There was a guard at the gate to the militia compound, not the same man Elizabeth had encountered before. He seemed to know Tyler and the two chatted amiably for a few minutes. At last Harice told him, “I'd take it kindly was you to let me through. I need to talk to Colonel Flinn.”

The guard shrugged, swung open the heavy metal gate, and waved them into the woods of Devil's Fork. Harice shifted his truck into four-wheel drive and eased it up the steep dirt and gravel road. “Looks like they'd shoot some of these big rocks,” he commented as the truck crawled painfully over a half-buried boulder that resembled a small, basking whale. “A few sticks of dynamite'd make a big difference.”

He grimaced as something on the underside of the truck scraped over a high rock. “Me and Daddy used t' come up here atter sang, but we allus come on foot or rode his plow mules.”

Elizabeth's eyes were scanning the woods for any sign of Ursa. Just to make conversation, she asked, “Who lived here before these people bought it?”

“Ain't nobody ever lived here far as I know. Too steep and rocky fer baccer. And ain't many folks around here want to live in a place called Devil's Fork.” Harice shook his head as his muffler scraped on another protruding rock. “Mostly when people from away buy land, first thing they do is put in a good road. I guess these old boys don't want much company.”

The woods were thinning now and Elizabeth could see a small, relatively level clearing that seemed to have been set up as an obstacle course of some sort. There were climbing ropes dangling from a row of scaffolds made of locust trunks, a series of barricades made of the same unpeeled locust, and a high bridge consisting of slender logs laid end to end snaking its way over a large rectangular pool.

“They got ol' Clifford Webster and his backhole digger and bullnoser up here to dig that pit.” Harice nodded toward the murky water as they made their way past the clearing. “Hit's dug eight foot deep. Clifford told Daddy that they use it for trainin'; make their men swim acrost it with all their clothes on and a big ol' pack and a rifle too. Just like the Marine Corps, he said. And then they make 'em run over them foot logs carryin' all that gear. Hit must be a sight on earth watchin' them ol' boys try to keep their balance. Them logs don't look to be more'n ten inches around.”

They were approaching another level area, evidently the work of Clifford Webster and his bulldozer. Rough cuts in the mountain slope were almost covered in rampant grapevines, and a cluster of small buildings, crudely constructed of rough-sawn lumber, stood in a semicircle around a bare expanse of dirt. At the center a tall flagpole flew the American flag. The largest of the buildings was opposite the flagpole, and over its door Elizabeth saw the logo Ben had described to her—an American flag in the shape of the United States with a cross rising out of it. Beneath it were the capital letters
HQ.

“Where are all the people?” asked Elizabeth, surprised at seeing only a pimply teenager in fatigues standing beside the headquarters door, his legs braced wide apart and his hands behind his back, sentry-style.

“Prob'ly up the mountain,” answered Harice as he stopped the truck and cut the motor. “They get a lot of weekend fellers, ones what ain't quit their jobs but want to belong. They come out and Flinn and his buddies run 'em up and down all weekend. Even at night, what I hear.”

The bright colors of the flag whipped and snapped against the clear blue sky as the young guard came around the truck to Harice's window. “State your business,” he said curtly, with a scowl that was meant to be threatening.

Harice smiled easily and said, “Fine day, ain't it, son. You just tell Colonel Flinn that his neighbor over the hill's here to see him. He knows who I am.”

The boy disappeared into the headquarters building.
That was easy,
Elizabeth thought.
So far, so good. Now if I can just keep my mouth shut and let Harice do the talking . . .

The teenager reappeared at the doorway and beckoned to them. Harice opened his door and said, “Might be best was you just to wait in—”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No way. You can do the talking but I need to go in with you.”

They were ushered in to a room containing a desk littered with papers and pamphlets. There were filing cabinets and a computer workstation, as well as a television and VCR on a stand. Behind the desk, the rough plank wall bore a large banner with the same flag-and-cross logo, this time with the words,
Adam's Sons in the Wilderness—God's People—God's Land.
A small man with thinning dark hair sat behind the desk. He was wearing camouflage fatigues and didn't look up from the sheaf of papers he was studying.

“What's the problem now, Tyler?” he growled at last, tossing the papers aside and leaning back in his swivel chair. He peered over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses with a sour gaze. “I warned the troops to stay off your land. We uphold the sanctity of a white man's property. Some of those new recruits—”

“Ain't nothing like that, Colonel,” Harice drawled equably. “We ain't been bothered by yore boys since I put a load of rock salt into a couple of 'em. They must of thought couldn't nobody see 'em with their camo outfits and their painted-up faces. Naw, hit's about a dog. Miz Goodweather here's lost a big, black shaggy dog. I seen it go through my place back of this, a-headin' up yore way. Thought hit might be hangin' around here.”

The colonel's sharp gray eyes rested on Elizabeth briefly. Without acknowledging her presence, he said curtly, “I wouldn't know anything about any dog.” He picked up his papers again. “Ask Strickland about it on your way out.”

Strickland, the young guard, seemed unsure. He might have seen a big black dog around, but not today. “Some of the men were trying to catch it, but—” He stopped short as if he'd said more than he'd meant to, then resumed his military stance by the door. His spotty face became a rigid, tight-lipped mask. There would be no more conversation about dogs, his expression said.

“Something's not right,” muttered Elizabeth, and as Harice was preparing to climb back into the truck, she strode to the base of the flagpole and whistled shrilly. Then, in a deep, loud voice, she called: “Urrrsaa, Urrrsaaa!”

From the interior of the building farthest to the left came a frantic scrabbling and an answering bark. Elizabeth dashed to the door just as Ursa, trailing a short length of rope with a wetly frayed end, barreled around the building from the back. Seventy-five pounds of joy hurtled at Elizabeth, who sank to her knees to hug her dog.

“Once was lost but now she's found,” commented Harice, opening the truck door for Elizabeth. Ursa, taking this as an invitation, leaped in.

“Let's just get out of here,” said Elizabeth, seeing that young Stickland had gone back inside the headquarters building. “I've got her now and that's all I care about.”

As they made their way back down the road, Elizabeth ran her hands over the dog in search of any wounds. Aside from being thinner than usual and covered with burrs and dried mud, Ursa seemed in good condition. Elizabeth felt under the long ruff of fur for the collar that carried her phone number, but it was missing. In its place was a tightly knotted rope, the end of which Ursa had evidently chewed through. Elizabeth worked at the knot patiently till at last it was loose. Her elation at finding Ursa was rapidly being replaced with anger at these people who had kept her dog tied up.

“There's some of them weekend fellers now,” Harice commented as they passed the obstacle course. Twenty men in the inevitable camouflage fatigues were struggling up the long ropes or clambering over the high log barricades. To one side stood a burly figure, shouting at them in a deep, gravelly voice that would have done credit to any Parris Island drill instructor. Elizabeth stared in amazement as the man pulled off his cap and threw it to the ground in disgust at the seeming inability of one of the climbers to progress more than three feet up the rope. His back was to her, but the shiny, nut brown, bald head and the voice were unmistakable. Phillip Hawkins.

Suddenly he became aware of the truck passing and swung around. His eyes met Elizabeth's and for a moment he looked totally bewildered. Then, scooping up his cap, he slapped it back in place and swung back to his charges. “Come on, ladies, get your butts up those ropes!”

Elizabeth buried her face in Ursa's silky ruff. It smelled of the woods, of earth and leaves. She hugged the big animal and struggled to make sense of what she had just seen. At her side, Harice Tyler was saying, “They say a dog's man's best friend; looks like you must feel that way.”

“You can trust a dog.”

“I'm right proud you found her. I was afraid they might be havin' what they call a night hunt tonight. Those weekend fellers dearly love creepin' around the woods with their rifles and such. I had to talk to Flinn back of this; they was snoopin' all around my daddy's place and he don't hold with that. Flinn said they was just practicin' reconnaissance. I told him they could go practice it som'eres else.”

As they passed through the gate and turned back onto Bear Tree Creek, Harice waved cheerfully at the guard. “They ain't all bad. Some of 'em are just old boys who want to play soldier on the weekends. But they can be a little wild with them guns. Last time I seen that Cletus, he was talkin' about goin' over yon to transplant sang out of them beds Daddy planted back of this. Me and Daddy both told him to stay away from there, sang or no sang.”

Elizabeth found it difficult to concentrate on Harice's words. The scene at the obstacle course replayed on an endless loop in her brain.
He was at my house . . . he knew Ursa was my dog . . . He was Sam's friend . . .
formed the sound track.

By the time they were back at the foot of Little Man Holler where her car was parked, Elizabeth had resolved to put Hawkins out of her mind
. . . and life. I'm not going to ruin the rest of this beautiful day worrying about that creep.

She let Ursa out to nose around the roadside. She and Harice sat in his truck, talking of sang and dogs and springtime. The sun's pleasant warmth filled the cab; the urgent scent of leucothoë was strong in her nostrils.