Tomorrow River (29 page)

Backing towards the trail that will take him back home, he says, “Hurry, go get her the way Curry told you to. I’ll be waitin’ for y’all on the porch. I’ll have a bowl of berries ready.” And then, out of the trees that he disappeared into comes, “How many times do I got to tell you, there’s no wolves around here?”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” I say into the night. I know of at least one big bad one.

Through the trees, I can see the front porch light shining on Grampa’s black truck.

C
hapter Twenty-eight

I
’m not exaggerating, Woody is drooling happy to see me.

Ivory, too. I give my sister both of the egg salad sandwiches as an apology for being late and she feeds the crusts to the dog.

Getting next to her on the fort floor, I rip open one of the bags of crackers that I’ve been stealing out of the pantry and say, “You’re not goin’ to believe what I found out.” I’ve given some thought to what I’ll tell her. Not everything all at once. I’m going to start off with the good stuff. My sister is not decrepit, but sometimes that’s how I think of her. Like an old-fashioned gown that’s been sitting in Gramma’s attic trunk too long. If I’m not careful in the way I handle her, she could fray in my hands.

I lace her fingers in mine. “Now, take it easy, all right? I’m warnin’ you, this is big happy news.” I wish I could go slow and tell her every detail about what happened since I left her, but I got to be short and sweet. I’ll fill her in on the specifics later. We’re running out of time right now. “Don’t start hoopin’ or hollerin’.” I tilt my head towards the house. “We don’t want them to hear us.” Woody cocks her head the other way and so does Ivory. “All right then,” I say, swallowing in the biggest breath I can. “Vera told me at the drugstore tonight that Sam . . . our Sam . . . he’s not just our excellent friend . . . he’s . . . are you ready?”

She nods with a lot of enthusiasm.

“Sam is . . . our uncle!”

It takes her a second to get what I’m saying, but when she does, it’s like she hit Bingo! I knew she wouldn’t doubt me for a second. I’m her twin. Woody jumps up and spins in glee. Happy flaps around the fort!

“Isn’t that great?” More flapping. “Okay, okay, now settle down,” I say. “I got some bad news, too. You ready?” She doesn’t nod. “Curry Weaver told me that Papa went down to the sheriff’s office and brought along Mama’s diary and the watch Sam gave her. He’s tellin’ Sheriff Nash to charge Sam with murdering her.”

Just like the good news I delivered, it takes a second for this to sink in, and when it does Woody slaps the fort floor over and over. Attacks her hair. Gnashes her teeth. I try to get ahold of her around the waist, but it’s like trying to capture lightning. “I know . . . I know, it’s the worst news ever,” I tell her, “but don’t worry . . . we’re going to help Sam, all right?” I thought she’d get upset but not this much. There’s no reasoning with her when she gets like this. She shoves me down to the fort floor, reaches for her drawing pad out of the corner. Her face looks like it’s on fire.

Papa, Grampa, and Uncle Blackie are in the house. I got to calm her down before she starts howling. Remembering what I brought from What Goes Around Comes Around, I grab the scarf out of my pocket and place it around her neck. She stops wildly flipping through the pages of her pad long enough to take a sniff of the chiffon. She’s searching for Mama’s smell. “Sorry about that,” I say. “You know how Miss Artesia loves her spaghetti and meatballs.”

Woody drops the drawing pad in my lap. She’s found what she’s been searching for, but we really don’t have time for art appreciation right now. I made that promise to Curry to come back to the fort for my sister, then go over the creek stones to the Tittles’, but she’ll never do what I ask of her until I look through her drawings. Once she gets her mind set on something, there is no changing it. She can be a butterfly and a bulldozer, both at the same time.

I flick on my flashlight so I can see clearer what she’s all fired up about. Staring back at me is the drawing that’s been bothering me. The one she did of Mama with the ghosty figure. Woody must’ve been working on it when E. J. and I were in town. The crayon colors look bright and it’s got that waxy smell. There’s wavering lines coming off the previously unknown figure like fumes. I can tell now that it’s a lady. She’s got gray hair resting on her neck like an SOS pad. Her hands clasped in prayer.

I whistle in appreciation. And surprise. She never draws pictures of her. “That’s really something. I bet Mama is
oooh
in’ and
aaah
in’ up in Heaven at what an excellent version of Gramma you’ve come up with.” I brush the cracker crumbs off my legs, stand, and offer her my hand. “We can look at more pictures later, okay? We got to get goin’ now. I promised Curry—”

She starts crazy slapping the floor again.

“What, Woody, what?” She points angrily down at the drawing and then puts her hands around her neck like she’s choking herself. That’s when it comes to me that maybe Gramma’s smelling bad or making us play Holy Communion with her are not only the reasons Woody’s been avoiding her.

Oh, how could I be so dumb? So careless?

Gramma must’ve had one of her conniptions when I wasn’t around. She really can get out-of-control sometimes, especially if she’s provoked by Grampa. When he was sleeping one night, she tried to crucify him to the headboard of their bed. She had the nails and the hammer and everything. I know that might seem mental to some people, but I don’t really think it is. She’s got a lot of sane reasons to be mad at him. No. It’s not until our grandmother smears red lipstick on the palms of her hands and pretends that she’s bleeding like Jesus on the cross that I think she’s gone nuttier than one of her praline pies.

“Did Gramma have one of her fits and hurt you? Is that what you’re tryin’ to tell me?”

My sister shakes her head hard enough to make her braids whip.

“Shenny? Woody?” It’s Louise calling to us from down below. I didn’t hear her coming down the path from her cottage to the fort. “I know you’re up there. I see the light.”

“Only ignorant girls that live in bayou shanties sneak up on people and shout at ’em. What do ya want?” I say, keeping my eye on my twin. She is back to the drawing again. Circling faster and faster from the Gramma figure to the Mama figure.

“Uncle Cole wants you and Woody to come to the cottage,” Lou says. “Beezy’s over there. The sheriff . . . he’s arrested Sam.”

“We know that.” I’m sure the whole town does by now. Poor Beezy.

Woody puts her hand on the back of my head and tilts it forward until I’m a few inches away from the drawing. “I’m sorry. I still don’t see what you’re tryin’ to tell me,” I say in my most soothing voice.

Exasperated, my sister throws the pad off to the side and places her hands around
my
neck this time. Squeezes with all she’s got. This is the same thing she did to me that afternoon in our bedroom when we were looking at the drawing the same way we are now. “Cut it out!” I say, prying her fingers off. “I’m tryin’ hard as I can to understand.”

Lou shouts, but not mean-sounding, “We got food over at the cottage. I made some of that pecan fudge from your mama’s recipe.”

I know I should do what I promised Curry I’d do, but my stomach is begging me to fill it. The Tittles won’t have anything to eat and even if they did, I wouldn’t feel right taking it off them. Woody and I could just run over to the Jacksons, eat, tell Beezy that Sam is going to be okay in the long run, eat some more, and then take the stepping stones over to E. J.’s the way I told him I would. We’ll stay over there until tomorrow morning when Curry promised to answer all my questions.

I beg Woody, “Please, please, let’s leave the drawing be and go over to the Jacksons’. Did you notice how pleasant Lou sounds? I think she’s changed back to her old Louisiana self now that Blackie’s broken off with her. Bet we could get her to tell us a tale about Rex the kid-eating alligator while we chow down—doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

When she frowns at me, I start singing a couple of bars of “I’ll Never Say No to You” from the musical
The Unsinkable Molly Brown
. Making her feel guilty can work sometimes if I’m really trying to convince her of something.

“Uncle Cole says your grampappy is soused as a saxophone player on a Saturday night. And your uncle . . . ,” Lou says, choked up. “His Honor and his brother have begun celebratin’ the Founders, too.”

It’s good they got busy so early. Maybe they’ll forget all about Woody and me.

“I made ya girls a ju-jus,” Lou says, a little shy. That’s the nicest present a hoodoo woman can give. It’s a little sack full of fingernail clippings and ashes and feathers and toad parts. Those bags are supposed to drive off evil spirits. “I gotta get back to the cottage now. I know Beezy would love to see ya. Me, too.”

I want nothing more in the world right now than to call back to Lou, “We’re comin’ in two shakes,” but Woody has collapsed in a heap on the fort floor. Her face is glowing, radiating. There’s that flu going around. The one that got Clive Minnow. “Are you feelin’ sick?” I kneel down next to her and kiss her forehead, but it’s not warmer than it should be.

“You out there, girls?”

Woody jerks to attention, the way she always does at the sound of her voice. I scramble over to the fort’s peephole. Gramma Ruth Love is standing on the back porch of the house under the bug light. She’s wearing a cream-colored nightie and her hair that she has never cut is cascading down to her waist.

“I baked a lemon meringue for you,” she calls. Next to chiffon pie, that’s our mouth-watering favorite and she knows it. She loves my sister and me and wants to feed us and spend time together.

Or Grampa sent her out to entice us.

He’ll do that. He knows how fond we are of our grandmother most of the time. Thinking about a slice of her prize-winning pie is making my mouth water. Woody is furiously licking her lips, so maybe she’s feeling the same way. Or maybe not. Because now she’s doing something odd with her mouth. Twisting it, and then opening and closing it. Maybe she really
is
sick to her stomach.

“Are you going to upchuck?” I ask. “Let’s get you over to the side.” But it’s not a retching sound that comes out of her mouth. It’s a word that I swear sounds like, “
Cantaboo
.”

I’m not sure that she’s spoken or if it’s just wishful thinking on my part.

“Twins?” Gramma calls again from the porch. “I brought all my best dolls.”

Woody opens her mouth and tries again. Yes. I’m sure she’s saying, “
Cantaboo
.”

If this was any other moment in time, I would be crying for joy, thanking her for coming back to me, for speaking. But this isn’t any other moment in time. It’s now or never. I heard the screen door open and slam shut again.

“Cantaboo!”
My sister is telling me to
Run!
But there’s only one way down from the fort and Grampa is already coming.

Gramma is calling to him from the porch, “I’m sorry, Gus. I tried to get them to come down the way you told me.”

“Show yourselves!” Grampa shouts. When we don’t jump right up, he changes his tone to sound something more like one of those carnival men trying to con you into playing one of their games of chance. “There’s a nice surprise waitin’ for you two in the parlor.”

No, there isn’t. Not one thing that’s about to happen will be nice. Or a surprise.

This is all my fault. I should’ve done what Curry told me. Climbed up the fort steps and right away taken Woody over to E. J.’s.

I gotta make this right. I’m not going to let my sister suffer for my stupidity.

I hand her the flashlight, whispering, “I’m going down. Wait five minutes and then you and Ivory
cantaboo
over to the Tittles. Take the steppin’ stones and not the road so Grampa can’t follow you.” Nobody can scoot over those rocks faster than she does. I wish I could tell her to head over to the Jacksons, but they aren’t strong enough to fend off Grampa if he goes over to the cottage looking for her. And I can’t do that to them. They’re at the mercy of the great and invincible Guster Carmody. The Tittles are poor, but they
are
white. Grampa might think twice about charging over there in the dead of night. But even if he does, E. J. will hear him coming with a hunter’s ears. He’ll keep his true love safe. “Do you understand, pea?”

Woody shakes her head, but she does.

I take her hands in mine and say, “I had a visit with Curry Weaver tonight and you know what he said? He told me that you’re the only one in the whole world that can help Sam because you’re an eyewitness to what happened to Mama. That means you’re a very important person. We’ve got to keep you out of harm’s way. You don’t want to let Sam down, do you? You don’t want your new uncle to have to work on a chain gang, do you?”

“Get your twin butts down here!” Grampa can’t be more than ten paces away.

Woody lays her head on my chest. Ivory sets a paw high on my thigh.

“One more thing,” I say, petting them both. “You need to meet Curry out on the road in front of the house tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. He’s got some news for us.” My sister’s warm breath is coming fast onto my neck. She knows what’s bound to happen to me once I leave the fort. “Oh, c’mon now. It’s not the end of the world. Shoot. I can handle the root cellar with one hand tied behind my back. There’s those delicious strawberry preserves down there. I could eat all those up and wouldn’t you be jealous.”

I manage to get a teensy smile out of her.

“Sum bitch,” Grampa says, from right below us. “You girls make me send Ruth Love up after ya, I ain’t gonna be happy.”

“I’ll see you soon,” I tell Woody. “Go straight to E. J.’s. And keep your eyes peeled.” Then I call in my most congenial voice, “I’m comin’ right down, Grampa. Golly, I’m so, so sorry. I must’ve dozed off. Didn’t hear you.”