Sweeping Up Glass (21 page)

“Junk.” I lay my hand on his arm. “I need your help with something. In exchange, I’ll give Love Alice a quarter’s worth of store credit.”

“Twenty fi’ cents,” he says, wiping chicken grease from his chin. “That’d be a help.”

“Well, what I want might sound strange, so don’t be surprised, all right?”

“All right, Miz Livvy,” he says.

“Up at our place, I want to move the box with my pap in it.”

He stands there like I haven’t made good sense. His eyes are on the porch post or something. “Ma’am?”

“I want to take him up there by Saul. Day after tomorrow,” I say.

“Miss Livvy, I know once you make up your mind, it’s a sealed thing, but I just don’t believe this is the best idea.”

“He deserves a decent burial patch, don’t you think?”

“Yes’m. But it’s winter. And disturbin’ the dead is—flat wrong.”

“How is it wrong? I’ve got to do away with that outhouse, come spring, and the toolshed, too. Fill in the tunnel to the cellar, finish fixing things up.”

He shakes his head, looks around like he’s worried someone’s listening. “It don’t seem right.”

“We aren’t going to open the coffin, nothing like that.”

“Miss Livvy, by now that box is turned to rot.”

“We’ll have it tightly wrapped. I’ll do that myself in one of my quilts, if you’ll just help me dig.”

He wipes sweat from his forehead like it’s a whole lot more than ten degrees.

“Junk, please don’t go talking about haints and things. No ghosts are goin’ to visit your house for doing this.”

“I don’t know—”

“If you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself.”

“Hard work for a woman,” he says.

“I’ll make it a half dollar’s worth of credit.”

“My mammy won’t like this,” he says.

“Then we won’t tell her.”

“I ain’t ever lied to her—”

“We won’t lie. We won’t say anything.”

“You know Love Alice’ll come with me. She’ll want to be takin’ tea with you.”

“Then we’ll swear her to secrecy.”

He sighs.

“Seventy-five cents, Junk.” If I go on paying to have my life put in order, it’ll cost me a pure fortune. “And what’s left in the whiskey bottle.”

“I don’t feel good about this,” he says.

“But you’ll do it. I’ll come for you in a day or two—a morning when Will’m’s in school.” I go down the steps and out to my truck before he can argue more.

It’s another long afternoon. I wonder if the hunters are out today. Last night they probably tied one on in one of the rooms and slept late, with Molly or Wing cleaning up after them this morning. I bet they ate ham and eggs at Ruse’s Cafe, and any time now, they’ll be taking their rifles and heading for my hill. I can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t do the same.

Sure enough, before an hour passes, there are shots above the Ridge.

I ought to be in the kitchen, working on my quilts for spring, figuring new patterns. I’ve been thinking about pine trees—cutting patches of snowy-white branches with deep brown trunks, backing them with puffed cotton, and stitching them onto a field of blue.

When the thaw comes and the days warm, I’ll fold the quilts over my porch rails and have Will’m string a line between the sycamores. Maybe he and I will drive over with a hammer and nails and see if we can’t resurrect that old stall by the highway. He wouldn’t mind peddling one or two on a Sunday afternoon, him getting coins for each one he sells.

But here I go again, making plans as if Will’m will be with me in spring. The truth of it is, if I raised a ruckus and took Pauline to court, any judge would give him to her because she’s his ma’am. I’ve had a lot of years to think about this. Trouble has come to me backward and forward, like too much gravy running off my plate.

M
y mind is not on quilting, but on hunters. I was never one to sit still for anything, so I might as well give this a push and see what lands on its feet. Once more, I hike up the hill with Saul’s rifle. The snow has crusted over, and my legs ache something fierce. This steep-angled land has sometimes not been a blessing at all—or maybe I’m just getting old.

I keep climbing. The afternoon has warmed some, but not enough to make the icicles melt—which reminds me of when I was a kid, and how I used to break one from Ruse’s overhang and suck it down on my way to school. That was a long time ago, and I sure as the devil wouldn’t go back. I’ve heard folks talk about the fountain of youth, but if I had a tubful of its water, I wouldn’t drink. Whatever’s ahead is going to come.

I pull one foot out of the snow and put the other in—until the crack of a rifle shot near snaps my neck. I look up toward the Ridge, but can’t see anything from here. I wonder if Will’m’s sitting in the kitchen with the cubs in his arms, listening.

There are sharp-edged tracks on the Ridge, recent ones. Looks like two or three men. I follow them around gorsebush thickets and jack pines through which I cannot see the sky. They run off into the dark woods, and among the stunted evergreens, which
seems fitting, I come upon Alton Phelps down on one knee. In front of him is a she wolf, a neat round hole in her side. She’s barely breathing.

With one hand he lifts her right ear, and in his other is a fishing knife that he uses to make a quick downstroke, as if he is slicing butter. Another slices the ear away clean. I raise the rifle and pull the trigger. Smoke erupts, and the wolf jerks as the bullet enters between her eyes. The boom is so loud I wonder if I’m in danger of starting a slide. Phelps falls over backward. I have purposely not hit him. I could have, though, with an ease that amazes me. I’m so close I can smell the blood on his gloves.

“Jesus Christ, Miz Cross!” he says, slapping his ear with his hand like the ringing might fall out. “I thought you’d shot me.”

“You’re not takin’ me serious, Alton,” I tell him. “These wolves are my kin. Now you leave that ear lay and stand your sorry ass up.”

He rises slow, palms turned out. “Hold on, now—”

“I’ve got every right to shoot you. Signs been posted here for twenty years. That’s fair enough warning. You can shoot all the game you want, a quarter mile either side. But you’ve taken a liking to our hill. You tell me why on God’s earth that is.”

“You know perfectly well why,” he says, pulling his lips back so I can see his teeth. “It’s an eye for an eye, the Good Book says that.”

I take a breath so deep the cold hurts my lungs. “I’m sorry about your brother, if that’s it—the way James Arnold died. It was an accident. It was dark, the road was icy.”

His small eyes narrow. “I’m not talkin’ about that night, Miz Cross. Now you got things in your head that I assumed you’d forget. But as long as you’re goin’ on doggedly, askin’ questions and
digging up things, I’ve no choice but to close in on you and yours.”

Things in my head?

Because I can’t fathom his meaning, I say, “I oughta cut off your ear. Or at least put a hole in your kneecap.”

At that, he pales a little.

“Or I could plug you in the foot with your own gun, and we’ll call it even.”

“You can’t—”

In truth, I have no idea what I’m going to do. I won’t know till it comes down to it. I wonder if I’ve seen or heard something regarding the Phelpses, and clean forgotten. Clearly, he thinks I remember.

I say: “Oh, yes I can. Nobody likes you much, Phelps. You and your brothers caused hurt around here as long as I can remember. I can find twelve people before dark who’ll swear I was with them when you were shot.”

His grin widens. “You make me laugh, Miz Cross. Olivia—” He runs his tongue over his bottom lip like he’s testing a fever blister.

But then hands come around me and lift the gun, my grip still so tight that it goes off in the branches. The shot brings down snow on our heads, and Phelps hollers, “Well, shit, Buford!”

The man called Buford, and another in a red stocking cap, give me a shove, and I go down on my hip bone. I struggle to get on my feet, and I lunge, but they step out of reach, sorry bastards.

Phelps pockets the ear and retrieves his rifle from the rock where he’s laid it. “I can play that game, too, Miz Cross. Let Buford shoot you, and we’ll swear we thought you was a bear. Or
a crazed bobcat, that’s nearer the truth. Or we could just bury you deep and let ’em look.”

I knot my fists. “You sonofabitch.”

“Well now, that don’t help things at all. You realize, do you, which one of us is holdin’ the gun?”

Buford laughs, a long windy sound, and spits tobacco on the snow.

“You have to admit,” Phelps says, “I got double reason to hang you.”

Hang me?

“For what?” I’ve turned cold in my bones, and wish someone would come. But nobody will.

“You Harkers caused me more misery than one man ought to have—”

The man in the red cap nods and says, “You got a fine way with words, Alton.”

Phelps ignores him.

I say, “I told you, my pap would never hurt a living thing on purpose.”

Phelps’ face darkens, and he comes toward me with his lips pulled back and his teeth together, yellow-stained and reminding me of a rabid dog. Even Buford steps away. Phelps has gone over the edge like Ida, only quicker and with a Winchester in his hands.

“First Tate Harker, and now his kin,” he says. “Looks like I got to do somethin’ about you and that boy, Olivia.”

His words clutch at my heart. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Don’t play the fool, woman. You tell me what you know, or I’m comin’ after the boy. I got no worries with that crazy bitch Ida—she don’t make sense twice in one day.” And he laughs.

Snow drifts down from the evergreens. Soon it’s going to be too dark to see.

If Phelps kills me now, at least Pauline is here to take Will’m. The state can have Ida.

I say through my teeth, “James Arnold died, and you shot my wolves. I call that even.”

He shakes his head and puts out a hand for my rifle. Buford gives it to him. “I’ll tell you this—one word to anybody about our little talk here, and not only will I kill him, I’ll do it slow.” He empties the chamber, puts the shell in his pocket, and throws the gun down the hill. He gives the wolf one last kick. Then the three of them move off into the trees.

I stand there for a bit. Then I take up the gun and stumble toward home. Because I’ve been holding my breath, I suck wind till I think my ribs will crack.

By the time I can see the house, and Will’m on his stool, milking the goats late and blowing on his hands, I know one thing for sure. I must get him clear of Phelps, clear of here, till I can figure this out. And the only way I know to do that is to pack him off with Pauline when she goes.

Ida’s in the kitchen, when I come through the door, and she and Pauline are going at each other over bread slices that Pauline’s toasting in the oven.

“I’m trying to make us a celebration, Mama!” Pauline waves a sheet of paper at me. “A boy brought this telegram. I got an audition next week.”

“An audition,” I say.

“Yes. Aren’t you excited for me?”

“I been telling her,” says Ida, “that I can’t eat cinnamon, so don’t put any on my toast. It upsets my digestion.”

Pauline throws up her hands, while smoke curls out from
around the oven door. With a cup towel I yank open the door and pull out the pan, open the back door, and fling the toast in the yard.

“I got to leave tomorrow, Mama,” says Pauline. “This could be my big break. Be happy for me, please.”

Happy? The wolves are done for, Will’m and I are on Phelps’ list, the house smells like a fire sale. And my boy is leaving. Worse, Will’m stands in the doorway of the alcove, looking like we’ve taken turns whipping him. I can see the veins pulsing in his temples. His hair’s gone every which way, and his eyes look like he’s moved out of his head.

“You-all?” he says, tripping over his voice. “One of the cubs is dead.”

T
here aren’t enough ways to comfort Will’m. I’m so sorry for the state of things that I can’t bear to look at him. I bring paper from the store and wrap the pup.

“While I have my boots on, I’ll take the shovel and bury it out past Ida’s,” I tell them. “You-all sit in your chairs like civilized people. When I come back, I’ll put supper on. Till then, nobody moves.”

Will’m puts on his coat and follows me. He’s still sniffling, but I can’t tell if it’s sadness or smoke from the toast. I must remember to tell Pauline he has a cold. We cross the property and find a spot.

“I’ll do it,” he says, taking the shovel.

“Lord, Will’m, there’s been too much burying lately.”

He lays the cub in the hole and covers it over. We walk back to the house, neither of us giving up another word.

“It was just cinnamon toast,” Pauline says to no one.

I pull off my boots, hang up my cape and my hat. “I thank you for trying, but there’s no use making Ida something special.”

“Well, honestly,” Pauline says, still miffed. Her hair is pin-curled flat against her head with a hairnet pulled over.

“Indecent way to come to the table,” Ida says. “You can tell she ain’t kin of ours.”

“She is, Ida.” I bang the skillet on the burner. “She’s your granddaughter.”

Any other night, I’d have put them to helping, or Will’m at least would’ve offered, but tonight I need quiet because that, at least, is some kind of order. In no time, I’ve set on the table a stack of corn cakes and slices of fried mush. I’ve warmed butter beans from another night’s meal, and a cupful of bitter greens, though I’m the only one who will eat them.

Ida forks a corn cake on her plate and slathers it up. I wish there were signs that might tell me when Ida’s really gone off somewhere in her head, and when it’s only put on. I might try pretending to be crazy, sometime, just to see if it’s a comfort.

Pauline pats her hairpins. “I thought I’d go on down to the juke joint tonight, Mama, and don’t look at me like that. It’s just for an hour.”

Will’m stares at his plate.

I hold my coffee cup so tight it’s in danger of shattering. “There’s no good comes of the juke joint,” I tell her. “You know that.”

“Don’t be silly,” she says. “In the morning we’ll pack Will’m up, and he and I’ll head out.”