Summer in the South (18 page)

She gave Ava a quick, bashful hug. “Any friend of Jake’s is welcome here,” she said.

Ava felt suddenly shy, and she was glad when Sally said, “And this here is Sprinkles and this is Tinker Belle.”

The horses were adorable, neither one bigger than a large golden retriever, and when they walked back up the trail to the house, the two of them followed at Sally’s heels. They stood on the deck, their noses pressed against the French doors, watching as Jake, Ava, and Sally washed their hands and sat down at the table.

“Jake says they’re house-trained,” Ava said, laughing at the little horses’ forlorn expressions.

“Oh, yes,” Sally said. She had strong, regular features, and Ava realized that Jake got his lopsided grin from her. “They come in at night but during the day, when the weather’s nice, I insist that they stay outdoors. Horses are prone to respiratory problems, and they need clean fresh air to stay healthy.”

She set china plates out for them. Jake took the barbecue out of the bag and put it on the table so they could help themselves, along with silverware and napkins.

Sally smiled at Ava, indicating that she should go first. “Jake says you’re from Chicago.”

“Yes,” Ava said.

“You’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”

Ava wasn’t sure how much Jake had told his mother about her reasons for being in Woodburn, so she just smiled and said, “It’s been a real adjustment.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it,” Sally said, helping herself to some coleslaw. “Everyone does. Eventually.”

T
hey talked for a while about the business of raising miniature horses. A blustery wind blew across the deck from time to time, stirring the tails of the little horses, and far off to the east a line of heavy storm clouds rode low on the horizon, wrapping the ridgetops in fog. Ava could see now how the Smoky Mountains got their name.

She and Jake were quiet during lunch, letting Sally do most of the talking. When she stopped, Ava put her fork down and said, “Jake told me you might know something about Charlie Woodburn.” She hadn’t meant to launch into it like that, to pose the question quite so boldly, but Jake’s continued silence was beginning to unnerve her. He seemed preoccupied today, and restless.

“I know a little,” Sally said.

“Was he related to you?”

Sally looked at Jake. “You didn’t tell her?” she said.

“Nope.”

“Boy, you surprise me.” She pushed her plate back and said sternly to Ava, “He has a fondness for the old Woodburn sisters that I don’t necessarily share. You should know that up front. Miss Fanny’s always been a kindhearted soul, but that Josephine’s as cold as a week-old enchilada.”

“That week-old enchilada donated a wing to the hospital that treated your kidney disease,” he reminded her.

“Blood money,” she said ominously.

“So you are related to Charlie?” Ava said, trying to head off an argument. She was avoiding him now, posing her questions directly to Sally.

Sally sighed, as if waiting for him to say something, and when he didn’t she pointed at Jake and said, “He’s Charlie’s grandson.” She chuckled, watching Ava’s face. “I know, I know, it’s like a big old soap opera. I was married to Jake’s daddy, King, who was Charlie’s son. King’s mama was a woman Charlie took up with before he ran off with Miss Fanny. They weren’t married or anything, at least not anything legal, but Charlie gave King his last name anyway on the birth certificate.”

Jake stood up and collected the empty plates and took them to the sink.

Sally said, “Charlie Woodburn was quite the ladies’ man, but I guess you’ve already heard about all of that.”

Ava sipped her iced tea and set her glass down. “Everyone down here seems to have their own version of Charlie and how he died.”

Jake stacked the dishes in the sink and turned on the tap. “Why don’t you just go with what the death certificate said?”

“What did it say?”

“It said he drowned. Accidentally.”

Sally snorted and waved her hand dismissively. “Hell, the death certificate would say whatever the Woodburns wanted it to say. You can’t go by that at all.”

L
ater, Sally told them about Clara McGann. How Clara’s ancestor, Hannah, had been a slave and bore Randal Woodburn three children. When he married Delphine, he gave Hannah and her children their freedom, and Hannah married and went off to New Orleans with her new husband. But when Hannah and her husband died, Randal went to New Orleans and brought the three children back to Longford, and later he gave them to one of his sons as a wedding present.

“You mean he took three children who were
free
and put them back into slavery?” Ava said.

“That’s right. And his own children at that.”

Jake rose and went to the refrigerator. He hadn’t said a word during his mother’s revelations, staring rigidly out the French doors, his fingers tapping lightly against the table.

“So Clara McGann is actually a Woodburn?” Ava said.

Sally pointed at Jake’s sturdy back. “She descends from Old Randal just like he does.”

“And the Woodburns know this?”

“Of course they do! Nobody talks about it, but everybody knows.”

Ava was quiet for a moment. Now that she knew, she felt that she had suspected it all along: the way Josephine and Clara carried themselves, their similar height and graceful manner. Hadn’t she thought they looked like sisters?

She leaned forward and rested her arms on the table. “So tell me, Sally. Who do you think killed Charlie Woodburn?”

Jake brought the pitcher of tea and poured everyone a fresh glass. Sally watched him, her lips pursed, a fond, thoughtful expression on her face. “I always heard it was the Woodburn cousins. Josephine and Fanny didn’t have any brothers, so the male cousins would have considered it their duty to protect the womenfolk from a scoundrel like Charlie. That’s how it was done in those days. They say Charlie’s body was pretty battered when they pulled him out of the river. It’s a large family, spread out over most of the county. They’re all intermarried, you know. Of course, that’s the way it was done back then. Look at the royal family of England, look at the family trees of most of the well-to-do in this country. Cousins marrying cousins for generations just to keep the property intact.” She glanced at Jake, who stared down at his glass. “It’s all about money. Money and property and family honor. They killed Charlie because he was a Black Woodburn, and they couldn’t have him getting his hands on any of that money.”

Jake rose and put the tea away. He looked at Ava. “I thought we might take a walk,” he said.

Sally groaned and flattened her palms against the table, pushing herself to her feet. “My back is acting up. You better hurry before the rain comes.”

Ava said vaguely, “A walk would be nice.” She was thinking of something she hadn’t considered before. She remembered Alice and Clara’s admission that Charlie had been an alcoholic. Nothing Sally had told her contradicted that. “You don’t think it might have been suicide, do you? With Charlie? You don’t think he might have taken his own life?”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Sally said. “From what I’ve heard about him, he didn’t seem the type. Still, you never know.” She grimaced and put her hands on her back, stretching. “It happens more frequently than you might think. This town is rife with suicides.”

T
here was a smell of rain in the air. The little horses followed them to the edge of the deck, then stood watching soberly as they crossed the field. Jake went ahead of her to open a gate that led into another, larger pasture. As he leaned down, she saw his deeply tanned neck above the collar of his T-shirt, and she imagined herself touching him there, laying her fingers lightly against his skin. When he straightened up, she looked away quickly.

They walked across the field to a fringe of tall trees. There was a path here leading down to a rocky creek. The air beneath the trees was cool and damp, and smelled of leaves and wet rock. She walked beside him, matching her stride to his, so close they occasionally bumped against each other.

He stopped for a moment, listening. Thunder rumbled in the distance. “We’ve got about twenty minutes before the storm hits. We shouldn’t go too far.”

They went on, following the sound of the creek.

“Does it make you nervous when I ask about Charlie Woodburn?” she said.

He grinned. “Again with the personal questions.”

“Sorry. It must be my Yankee upbringing.”

“I like your honesty. It’s refreshing.”

“I’m not trying to offend anyone, although I have the feeling that I do. Constantly. It’s unintentional, though.”

Now that they were away from Sally he seemed a little more at ease, although Ava still had the feeling he was on guard about something, holding himself close.

“We’re a little sensitive down here about our history,” he said. “You see one too many bad made-for-TV movies and you get a chip on your shoulder.”

“I’m sorry if my questions seem rude. It’s just that I’m curious. It’s some kind of strange compulsion I have. If someone has a secret, I have to try to figure it out.”

“You might find that we’re not as interesting as you think.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

The slope became gradually steeper, and they could see the creek now through the trees. He stopped, and let her walk ahead of him.

“If I thought about it, I could be bitter about the Woodburns,” he said. He seemed more comfortable talking to her back. She walked slowly, grabbing hold of narrow trees and brush to keep her balance. “But I could be bitter about Charlie Woodburn, too. My father drank himself to death three years after I was born, and who’s to say it would have been any better if he’d had a father, if Charlie had lived. Charlie didn’t bother to marry my grandmother. He ran off instead with Fanny Woodburn against her family’s wishes—he doesn’t sound like the kind of man anyone should grieve over. We’ve got a bad habit down here of allowing patterns of male violence and oppression to continue through generations. I, for one, don’t think it’s healthy.”

“I guess I hadn’t really looked at it like that. From your father and grandmother’s point of view. I was looking at Fanny and Charlie and thinking it must have been some kind of passionate love affair. Something neither one could deny.”

“There may have been some of that. Who knows?”

“That’s the interesting question,” Ava said.

“I think living in the past is always a mistake. You can’t go back and change anything, so let it go and move on.”

They were walking side by side, and occasionally he would brush against her. When he did, she felt a strange hum, like a kind of low vibration, run up her bare arm and across both shoulders. She stopped and looked up at him. “But what if we can learn something from the stories people tell?”

He was quiet for a moment, considering this. “The aunts are good people. They’ve been good to me.” He gazed up through the trees at the distant rim of sky. “Everyone has a different story, and you have to ask yourself what motivates people to see reality the way they do. The aunts gave me an opportunity to get an education, to better myself, but from my mother’s point of view they took me away from her for six years. They’re members of a family that refused to recognize my father as being anything more than illegitimate white trash. So she doesn’t see them in a favorable light.”

He continued to stare at the sky. When he spoke again it was in a cautious, thoughtful tone. “The way I look at the Woodburn legacy is this: it’s not right, what happened, but it’s the way it was. Period.” He dropped his chin, stared at her intently. “Every civilization has its dark periods. Look at how the Irish were treated in New England. Look at the New York race riots, child labor during the Industrial Revolution.”

“Were you by any chance a history major?”

He grinned suddenly, a brief, dazzling smile. “Art history.”

“I knew it. She wondered what he would be like as a lover.

He stepped around her, careful not to touch her, and walked to the edge of a steep rise, looking down at the creek.

“Is something wrong?” she said. He would be generous, inventive, and kind, she decided.

“We should probably go back.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He turned and came back up the slope, stopping several feet below her. He broke off the tip of a pine branch, slowly stripping the needles. “I thought you and Will were old college friends,” he said. “Nothing more.”

“We are.”

“I heard you were engaged.”

“Good Lord! Who told you that?”

“Someone who was at the barbecue.”

“Well, they’re wrong. Will and I are just good friends.”

He gave her a long, searching look, pulling the branch through his fingers. “Does Will know that?”

She struggled to hold his gaze, then looked away. “He should. I’ve told him often enough.” They stood quietly facing each other. There was nothing else she could say.

“We better get back,” he said.

She turned and walked ahead of him up the ridge. Behind her he said quietly, “There’s already bad blood between Will and me.”

She realized then that he wasn’t going to touch her. Whatever it was between him and Will, he wanted it over with.

T
he storm, which had held off all morning, finally broke. Rain lashed the tops of the trees and drummed along the roof of the car as she drove home. The weather matched her melancholy mood. Nothing would come of her attraction to Jake Woodburn. She knew that now. He wouldn’t do anything to further distress the aunts or Will; he had made it clear that he wanted back in their good graces.

Despite her disappointment she couldn’t help but feel a flicker of relief. The last thing she needed this summer was another dead-end love affair. The last thing she needed was another distraction to keep her from writing her novel.

She drove through the rainy countryside thinking over what she’d learned about Charlie Woodburn, what she’d
supposedly
learned, because the truth was, you couldn’t trust town gossip, even gossip that had been sifted and honed through over sixty years of telling. Anyone could have killed Charlie. Charlie could have killed himself. It was tempting to let it go, to spend no more time thinking about him.