The Steep and Thorny Way(13)

“Sheriff Rink’s here,” said Mildred. “Better go.”

I nodded and scampered down the steps of the porch.

Now, it should be noted that Sheriff Rink, nicknamed “Sheriff Rinky-Dink” between Fleur and me, possessed the highest male voice known to mankind—a wheezy, breezy squeak of a tenor that matched his short stature but not his sturdy build.

“Good morning, Hanalee,” he chirped in a decibel that I had never once reached in regular conversation. He stopped the car beside me with the motor still running. “Did you spend the night with the Markses?”

I glanced down at my bag. “Oh . . . Well, no. I stayed at Fleur’s house and made a detour over here before I head back home.”

“Why?” he asked. His tiny gray mouse eyes peered at me from beneath his blue cap.

“Why?” I repeated.

He smiled. “What were you doing at the Markses’?”

I peeked over my shoulder, but Mildred had gone from the porch. The distant thumping of the whiskey still chugged like a heartbeat behind the house’s outer layers.

“Mildred told me . . .” I turned back toward him, hoping he wouldn’t hear the brown bottle sloshing inside my valise. “She . . . offered me a book to borrow.”

The sheriff readjusted his backside in his seat. “Well, just be careful wandering around on your own right now. The Oregon State Penitentiary released Joe Adder over the weekend”—he darted a quick glance over his right shoulder—“and he’s currently hiding out somewhere nearby.”

I cleared my throat. “Why do you suspect that he’s hiding?”

“His father won’t allow him back in his house. Keep an eye out for him, but don’t speak to him.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” The sheriff crinkled his graying eyebrows. “He was a convicted man, Hanalee. He killed your poor father by violating Prohibition and driving around like a hellion. Why would you want to talk to him?”

“I don’t. I just wondered if you thought he might be mentally unstable.”

“That boy is definitely unstable. Don’t ever let him near you, and don’t listen to a word he says.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good girl. Now go on home.” Sheriff Rink released the brake and steered his car to a patch of dead grass directly in front of Mildred’s house.

A second later, Mrs. Marks threw open the front door and called out, “Oh, hello, Sheriff Rink. So nice to see you this morning.” She smiled and waved the sheriff up to the porch, and I saw a wad of cash poking out from her apron pocket. “Won’t you come inside?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” The sheriff—a man twice divorced and not typically popular with the ladies—climbed out of his car and removed his blue cap to reveal his head of silvery-brown hair, cut close to his scalp, combed to the left like waves breaking over a riverbank. He swaggered up the porch steps and followed Mildred’s mother inside.

Mrs. Marks leaned her face out the door. “Go on home, Hanalee. I’m sure you’ve got something better to do than to linger around here, gaping like a fish.”

Without a word in response, I swung my bag and myself in the direction of the highway and meandered away from the little scene of illegal moonshine production and police bribery. I envisioned Sheriff Rink driving away from the house with a bundle of hush money stuffed inside a pocket and a jug of booze stashed in the backseat for himself.

Despite all the warnings, I didn’t once come across Joe Adder on my walk back home.

Nor my father’s spirit.

It was just me and the forest birds and the bottle of Necromancer’s Nectar.



MEDICINE BOTTLE, EARLY 1900s.





CHAPTER 5




WHERE WILT THOU LEAD ME?

BY THE TIME I RETURNED HOME, Uncle Clyde had already driven off to his office in downtown Elston, two miles away, which was fine by me. For the better part of the morning, the house belonged to just Mama and me. We scrubbed stains out of the laundry on a washboard in the kitchen, while out in the backyard a fire crackled and simmered beneath a large iron pot, stacked upon bricks, filled with water and Lux laundry soap. We rinsed and wrung out all the whites, and once the water outside bubbled to a boil, we carried the garments from the house and plunked them into the steaming pot.

I jabbed the laundry plunger into swirls of fabrics the colors of cream and snow, while bubbles popped and spat at my fingers, threatening to scald. Steam dampened my cheeks and made me feel a little feverish. A little dizzy.

“Everyone’s warning me to watch out for Joe Adder,” I said to Mama.

She lowered the tulip-embroidered tablecloth into the pot, keeping her eye on the task at hand.

“Did you hear what I said, Mama?”

“Who’s ‘everyone’?”

“Robbie. Mildred. Sheriff Rink.”

She lifted her head. “You’ve spoken to the sheriff?”

“I saw him on my way back home this morning.” I plunged the tablecloth down to the bottom of the pot, where the tangle of fabrics resembled a woman in a nightgown writhing in the blackness beneath the water. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand. “Has Uncle Clyde ever said Joe was mentally unstable?”

Mama took the plunger from me and stirred the mass of laundry herself. “He doesn’t want to talk about Joe Adder, which you should have known at the dinner table yesterday. Don’t ever bring up unpleasant topics during meals, Hanalee.”