The Steep and Thorny Way(16)

Time kept skipping ahead. I moved a quarter mile. A half mile. Another highway—one that led to the farmlands of the south and the finer houses of the north—met up with the main road, and there I stood, in the crossroads, as crazy Mildred Marks had told me to do. Using the toe of one of my Keds, I drew a circle in the gravel, next to the southeastern points where the two streets met, and I stepped inside it. I waited with my arms hanging by my sides, my veins flowing with molten lava, all alone in the pitch-dark, near midnight, surrounded by a devil’s circle.

“Lord, help me,” I whispered.

The stink of manure was so sharp and ripe in the air, it woke me up a bit to my stupidity. I smelled stables and fields and the false sweetness of life in Elston, and I imagined someone like Robbie Witten driving by, finding me all alone, drunk on bottled moonshine.

I turned back to the east, ready to step out of my circle and dash back home, when a sound met my ears.

Footsteps.

Labored footsteps—like those of a man dragging a busted leg as he limped toward me across the macadamized road made of tar and broken rocks. I pivoted on my heels, facing west again, and peered into the stretch of darkness before me.

I saw him. A man my father’s height, with long legs and a sturdy build. He wore a dark suit, a crimson bow tie, and a familiar black derby hat that Mama and I bought one Christmas during the war years, when our cornfields turned a fair profit and we waited for Daddy to return from the fighting overseas. He ambled closer, favoring his left leg, and I glimpsed the shine of his brown eyes—eyes swimming with so much love, they just about melted me to the ground. I recognized his golden-brown skin, his strong jaw, his broad nose, his smooth complexion that always made him look much younger than a man who had endured forty-one years of hardships.

My father, Hank Denney, staggered toward me on that midnight road and stopped two yards away from the shoe-drawn circle in which I trembled.

“Daddy?” I asked, my voice catching in my throat.

He took off his hat and held it against his chest, and he peered straight at me, like a man who lived and breathed.

“I’m so sorry, Hanalee,” he said, his voice gentle yet strong and deep enough to rumble inside the marrow of my bones. “I’m so terribly sorry. I should have gone to church with you.”

“But . . .” I shook my head. My chin and nose quivered with spasms I couldn’t control. “D-d-did you tell Joe—Joe Adder . . . Did you tell him that the doc would be—be the death of you?”

He lowered his face and wrinkled his brow. “My body just couldn’t take what it was given that Christmas Eve, baby doll. I’m sorry I wasn’t a stronger man and that hate won out that night.” He heaved a sigh that made his shoulders rise and fall. “Hate is a powerful demon that worms its way into the hearts of fearful men.”

“But . . . Joe . . . not the doc. J-J-Joe Adder killed you. Didn’t he?”

“That Model T surely didn’t feel good, I admit, but that boy was so scared”—Daddy raised his eyes to me, a sad smile on his face—“I worried more about him than about myself. No . . .” He placed his hat back on his head. “Joe Adder didn’t kill me, Hanalee. I put full blame on the doc.”

“But . . . Mama . . . she . . .” Tears swam in my eyes, blurring him from view. “Sh-sh-she remarried, just this past winter. Dr. Koning comforted her and—”

“Don’t be harsh on your mama. I should have fought harder to survive that night. I should have taken better care of myself so my heart could’ve been stronger.”

“How can you possibly blame yourself? You just said—”

An automobile engine growled our way from somewhere down the road.

Daddy glanced over his shoulder and stepped back with his good leg. “Go home. It’s not safe to wander these roads late at night.”

“Do you want revenge, Daddy?”

“Go home. And stay away from the doc.”

“Do you want me to—?”

“For God’s sake, girl, go home!”

Headlights swerved into view, and I thought of Sheriff Rink patrolling the streets, or Deputy Fortaine with his Hollywood smile and his ties to Uncle Clyde. I jumped out of my circle and dove onto my belly in a patch of dirt behind wild blackberries, and as soon as the car roared by, my father seeped away into the darkness, as if swallowed up by ink.

He was gone.

Again.





CHAPTER 6





WILD AND WHIRLING


I TORE PAST TREES AND FERNS AND scraped my arms on berry thorns, twisting my ankle, not caring at all about the pain. The nighttime forest glowed in a strange haze of gold, and the fat trunks and green awnings soared high above, as if I were nothing more than a spider scampering through a window box. Branches and leaves pushed at my back, thrusting me forward, sending me on my way through the night to the Paulissens’ little white shed.

I banged my fists on the door.

“Joe? Are you in there?”

Joe slammed his full weight against the door from within, as if to hold it closed.

“Wait!” I grabbed the knob. “It’s Hanalee. I need to talk to you.”

“Have you got a gun?” he called through the slats.

“No.”

“You swear?”