The Last Road Home (19 page)

I know he changed while he was gone, but was I any better? After killing three men, including my childhood best friend, I was pretty sure I wasn't. Pain began to shoot up my arms, and I looked down to realize my fists were gripped together so tight my palms were turning blue. I shook them out, and struggled to calm down so I could think like a God-fearing man. I never set out to hurt anybody; all I did was protect my life. That was bound to hold reason; didn't David kill Goliath, and doesn't good always win over evil? Wasn't I a good person?

Morning birds began to sing to give thanks for making it through the darkness. I remembered one summer when times were really bad, no rain for over a month, crops burning up in the fields and the garden beginning to die, all pointing toward a lean, tough winter. I heard Granddaddy get up in the early dark one morning and found him in the yard. “Why you sitting out here in the grass?”

He put his arm around me and pulled me to sit close. “Waiting to catch first light, son. A new day brings new hope. If the good Lord can lift that sun up this morning, surely we can do better today than we did yesterday.”

The sun did come up that morning, and that afternoon I'll be damned if it didn't start to rain, and it rained two days straight. So, on this morning I determined I'd try to make it through this darkness.

When Fancy hadn't shown up by eleven that night, I was relieved not to have to face her. Eventually I slept, and dreamed. Lightning laughed at me from a pool of hellfire. Blood spurted from his chest, and it choked in my mouth and throat.

Whatever hopes I'd had about living a normal life were gone. My suitcase had been stuffed with all manner of things I would never be able to unpack again: the innocence of being a kid, the security of believing I knew what was going to happen next in my life, and the notion that everything would always work out for the best.

C
HAPTER
39

A
t sundown I went to do the evening chores. I got back to the house and Fancy was in the kitchen. “When did you get here?” Pots were sitting on the stove.

She poked her head from behind the icebox door, a smile on her face. “A few minutes ago. Saw you down by the barn, so figured to start a little supper. Where's Lightning?” She came over to kiss me on the cheek.

I had to get this right. “He's gone.”

Her smile disappeared. “Where did he go?”

“Said yesterday he was ready to leave, wanted to head west, get as far away from here as possible.”

Her face clouded like a thunderstorm. She turned her back to me, and started chopping turnips, punishing them with the blade. She stopped and twisted around, the knife in her hand. “How did he go?” The muscles in her face twitched.

I forced myself not to look away. “I drove him to the bus station.”

She jabbed the air with the knife. “Did something happen, Junebug? Did y'all have another fight?” Her bottom lip quivered. “He couldn't wait and say good-bye to me and Momma and Daddy?”

“Nothing happened, Fancy. He waited last night, but when you didn't come, he decided it was time. I took him early this morning. He said to tell all of you he loved you and would write soon as he could.”

“Did he take his money?” She spit out questions like darts. “Is our part safe? Or did we do all this for nothing?” She slammed the knife on the counter.

I flung my hat against the wall. “Quit acting like it's my fault. You know how anxious and nervous he'd gotten to be. I tried to convince him not to do it, but he didn't want to hear what I had to say.” At least that part was true.

Fancy put her hand to her forehead and rubbed. “I knew I should have come yesterday, but my shoulder hurt something awful after all that hugging and carrying on Christmas Day. Momma gave me some medicine before supper last night, and the next thing I knew it was this afternoon.”

“Lightning figured there was a reason.” This was the path I'd chosen and would have to stick to. “Just so you understand, I'm glad he's gone, because one of us wasn't going to last much longer living like this.”

She started slamming pots around. “Momma and Daddy will be so hurt.” She was close to crying.

I got up and took her in my arms. “He was sorry not to be able to tell you 'bye.”

Fancy squeezed tight to me. She looked up. “What happened to your cheek?”

I put a finger to the cut. “Caught an old nail at the barn.”

“You need to put some Mercurochrome on it so it doesn't get infected.” She got the bottle and dabbed it.

“Thanks,” I said. “I'm real sorry about Lightning leaving the way he did. I didn't make him or cause it to happen. I want you to understand that.” I touched my tongue to my finger to see if it was forked.

She leaned on the back of a kitchen chair, lowered her head, and sounded resigned. “It's not your fault, Junebug. I guess I shouldn't expect anything different from him.”

That night in the bedroom, I lay awake until the sky began to lighten. How could I keep such a secret? When I was little and had to watch things between Momma and Daddy I didn't want to see, I'd retreat to the little room in my head, close the door, and never speak or think about what I knew again. Doing that didn't make anything different, but as long as I kept my mouth shut I could pretend.

* * *

The next morning, Fancy went home to break the news to her folks about Lightning. Roy and Clemmy walked back with her that night, and we sat in the living room. “Did Lightning say where he might head?” Clemmy asked.

“All he said was he was going west.”

“Didn't you see his ticket?” Roy questioned.

“I don't know if he had one, at least I never saw it. I did wait and watch as the buses loaded, and saw Lightning get on one. I couldn't see the sign on the front that tells where it's headed, but I followed it a ways and it got on Highway 55 going west.”

“Maybe he's going to California,” said Fancy. “He was always talking about how things were better out there for colored folks.”

I jumped right on that. “You know, Fancy, I bet you're right. He always was talking about seeing what it was like in California, live by the ocean. Lightning told me one time he'd seen pictures of it and the place looked like a whole other world from here.”

C
HAPTER
40

B
y spring Fancy's shoulder had pretty much healed, a scar the only physical reminder. In April we got the tobacco plants in the field and started on the garden. We planted squash on a sunny afternoon after a morning rain. The air was steamy as the sun sucked back moisture the clouds had dropped earlier in the day. I was bent over going down one row and Fancy walked the one beside me.

She rose up, swatting around her face. “Damn gnats! They're about to drive me crazy.”

I didn't raise up, just kept walking. “Take off your britches.”

Fancy spit out one that had gotten in her mouth. “What the heck are you talking about, Junebug?”

“If you take off your britches, they won't bother your face no more.” She stood still for a minute, then hopped over the row and tried to tackle me. We rolled around laughing and throwing dirt clods at each other. I'd never been this happy. Our relationship had become as natural as sunrise.

Occasionally Lightning would show up in my dreams saying, “She's going to find you out.” There were days I was barely able to get out of bed, not wanting to face the day, not feeling like doing anything but stare at nothing. Even when Fancy was around, I'd find myself watching her and the guilt over Lightning would make me want to go hide my face in shame. But eventually I would convince myself I hadn't had any other choice. If he'd killed me and couldn't persuade Fancy that blood was thicker than water, would he have killed her too? No, there was no other way it could have turned out. Now what I had to do was just keep putting one foot in front of the other until it passed.

Fancy and me had our seventeenth birthdays, hers in May, mine in June. In another year the rest of the world should consider us adults to do as we pleased. But that was bullshit. We would only ever be able to do as the community pleased.

* * *

“Junebug, I got to talk to you.” Mr. Wilson cornered me one Sunday in the churchyard. He moved under a big oak and out of earshot of people passing by.

“Okay.” I leaned against the tree.

He was swelled up like he was going to bust. “That nigger gal of Roy's, is she staying at your place all the time?” He started shaking his finger at my face. “I warned you about getting mixed up with her. Folks around the community are starting to talk, saying your grandma would be rolling over in her grave if she knew what you were doing.”

If he touched me with that finger I'd leave his ass on the ground. “Why don't you tell me what I'm doing so I know what you're talking about, and you best be leaving Grandma out of it.”

Veins in his neck bulged. “Folks think she's being a common whore.”

I glanced at the sky. This was the day I knew might come. “Folks need to worry about their own business and leave mine alone.”

He got a smirk on his face. “Junebug, my cousin's girl works in Apex at the courthouse. You know what she does?”

At that moment I knew exactly what she did. “Can't say as I do.”

“She's in charge of recording deeds and wills and such; that give you some idea?”

I was sick of him. “Why don't you just make clear what you got to say?”

“Says she recorded a will for you; says you're leaving the farm to Fancy Stroud.”

“How's it any of your business what I do with what's mine?”

“You're leaving the farm to a nigger? Boy, ain't ever going to be no niggers owning property in this community.”

“Not that it's any of your business, but I'll tell you what I told the lawyer. I don't have any more family. If something happened to me, the state would sell my land at auction, so I'd just as soon leave it to somebody who deserved it. Fancy and me growed up together, and she's been there to help me all this time, and I'd want her to have it.”

Mr. Wilson went from red to blue, like he was about to choke. “If you wanted to sell it, why didn't you come to me?”

“Don't want to sell it, ain't going to sell it. Mr. Stern told me it could be changed any time, like if I got married, and had some kids. Besides, why would I want to sell it to you?” I moved closer, forcing him to step back.

Mrs. Wilson started waving at him to come on. He turned toward her, then looked back. “I hope nothing happens to you, Junebug. Things might get ugly around here.”

I spit on the ground at his feet. “Appreciate your concern.” I hoped he could feel my eyes as he walked away. After that Sunday, I didn't have to worry about any more visits from Mr. Wilson to be neighborly.

When I got home, I sat Fancy down. “Mr. Wilson cornered me at church. Said the community suspects about you and me, and he was mad as hell.”

“What did you say to him?”

“Told him what I did wasn't none of his or the community's business.”

“Do you think he would kick Momma and Daddy off his place?” Fancy covered her mouth. “What have we done, Junebug?”

“He didn't say it, but you should talk to them in case it happens.”

“I got to go tell them. If he does, it will be all my fault, and I wouldn't blame them if they never wanted to see me again.” She started to cry.

“Not your fault, mine. If it happens, they can come live with me until they figure out what to do.”

Roy and Clemmy decided they would wait and see. All that happened was Roy got a good cussing from Mr. Wilson, but he didn't throw them out. It being tobacco season, I guess their cheap labor meant more to him than the way he felt about me. Or maybe he had something else in mind. I wouldn't let Fancy walk home by herself anymore.

* * *

I heard nothing else from Mr. Wilson over the next month, and neither did Roy. By the end of September, putting-in-tobacco season had come and gone. Roy and Clemmy had helped me when Mr. Wilson's work was caught up, but he piled on plenty of extra, so we had to work late in the afternoons and on Saturdays. I had to let one acre rot in the field because there just wasn't enough time to do it all.

It was October and my tobacco was cured and ready for market. Fancy was cooking supper. “Let's take a load to Durham tomorrow.”

She grinned big. “Absolutely. I'm ready to get away from this place for a day. Maybe we could stop at a grocery store and get something different to eat for a change.” It had been a tough season, and that night we went to bed early, excited for a day off. I was sleeping sound when Fancy shook me.

“Junebug! Junebug, get up. Somebody's outside.”

I put on some pants and reached under the bed for the shotgun. I made my way to the back door and looked out. Immediately I saw the flames. “Fancy, get up! The pack house is burning!” I took off running.

At first I didn't notice the three pickup trucks at the edge of the yard. A group of men in white sheets stood beside them, watching my tobacco burn. One of them saw me coming. He raised a shotgun from under his sheet. “Stop right there, boy.” The rest of them pulled their guns. I recognized the one talking from his size and the sound of his voice. It was Luther, the man with the KKK tattoo.

I screamed at him. “You going to let my house and barns burn too?”

“Rest easy, son,” said Luther. “We're here to teach you a lesson, not kill you. Decent folks ain't going to tolerate you laying up with that nigger whore. You want to live amongst white folks, you're going to act like white folks. You need to get your mind straight.”

I jacked a round into the gun. “You cross-eyed son of a bitch, how the hell do you think I can live with you burning my crop? I've never bothered one soul! All I've been trying to do is survive, and now you think you're going to run me off? I'd rather die right here.”

“Well, that's what is fixing to happen if you don't put down the shotgun.” I recognized Bull Jones's voice.

Fancy came running out the back door. “Junebug put the gun down.” She got between them and me.

I kept yelling. “Shoot me, you chickenshit bastards. You're real brave hiding under your sheets.”

Luther spoke again. “If any killing gets started, boy, she's going to be right after you.”

“Let it go, Junebug, let it go,” Fancy pleaded, tears running down her face. “Tobacco ain't worth dying for.” She jerked the gun from me. “Come on.” She grabbed my arm, trying to pull me.

“That's a right smart gal, boy. Let her get her ass back home where she belongs, and you start acting like you got some sense.”

The bitter odor of burning tobacco settled over the yard, stinging my eyes. I studied every one of the men, settling on one standing in the back like he was hiding. The sheet couldn't disguise his potbelly.

“Go on in the house now.” Luther motioned with his shotgun. I framed the picture in my brain before I walked away.

Fancy waited in the kitchen. She put her arms around me, and we stood that way until we heard the trucks crank up and leave. As soon as they rounded the curve, we ran for the pack house. The fire had charred most of the upper level, but the packed dirt and heavy timbers on the cellar ceiling had kept the fire from burning through. I hoped I had time to get to the jars that were buried in the dirt. There was no choice except to try. I crawled inside to stay close to the floor, Fancy right behind me. When I moved the barrel, I went to my knees, hands and fingernails raking into the dirt like a dog digging a hole. As the top of each jar showed, I handed it to Fancy and she tossed them through the door. Fortunately, since they'd been underground, the glass wasn't hot and hadn't broken. I counted as I dug, and when I got to the last one we crawled out, choking and coughing.