The Steep and Thorny Way(34)

I DREAMED OF DADDY OPENING UP THE FRONT DOOR to our house. I stood in our gleaming oak entry hall, upon the green and gold rug, and I gaped at the sight of my father pulling his hat off his head of short, tight curls. He reached out his right hand, smiled, and told me in his deep, honey tones, “There’s been a mistake, baby doll. I didn’t die after all.”

A sound awoke me—a crack of a twig or some other minor disturbance that jolted me out of the sweetness of the dream. I grabbed hold of a warm hand that rested near my chest and strove to slip back to the place in which my father walked in from the fields, his coveralls streaked in dirt and flecks of hay, everything smelling fresh and clean and earthy.

A twig cracked again.

“What the hell . . . ?” said a nearby voice that made my heart stop. Cigarette smoke wafted into my nostrils.

My eyes flew open, and I found Robbie and Gil Witten standing over us, gawking, their heads cocked, as though they were viewing a two-headed creature with wings and a beak. Cigarettes burned in their right hands. A bottle of a clear booze that must have been gin dangled from Gil’s meaty left fingers. Robbie held a wooden-handled pocketknife with an exposed blade that glinted in the morning sunlight.

I froze beneath Joe’s arm.

Robbie closed his mouth and flicked ash from the end of his cigarette toward our feet beneath the blanket. “Hey, jailbird Joe!” he called out.

Joe stirred beside me. He opened his eyes to the faces above us and bolted to a sitting position. “What’re you doing here?”

Robbie took a drag from the cigarette and puffed a white cloud of smoke in our direction. “That’s precisely what we were about to ask you.”

“We were just coming out here for breakfast”—Gil tapped the bottle of gin against his leg—“and heard someone snoring.”

“I had no idea,” said Robbie, “it would be Elston’s most-wanted criminal and sweet Hanalee Denney.”

Gil snickered and turned bright red. “I thought for sure Hanalee would be naked under that blanket.”

Robbie furrowed his thick eyebrows at me. “What are you doing out here with this ex-convict? I warned you, he’s depraved.”

“Some breakfast you’ve got there,” said Joe, nodding toward the gin. “Aren’t Klan members supposed to be opposed to bootlegging?”

Gil shoved the bottle into a trouser pocket and averted his eyes from mine. “Who said we were in the Ku Klux Klan?”

“What’s more important,” said Robbie, “is what you and Hanalee Denney are doing wrapped up in a blanket in the middle of our Christian family’s property.” He sniffed the air. “The whole place reeks of sin.”

Gil snorted and slid his cigarette between his wet-looking lips.

All I could do was lie there, paralyzed, with my hand pressed around the outline of the holster beneath the blanket. The Junior Order of Klansmen pamphlet remained tucked inside my pocket.

Joe combed his fingers through his hair. “Hanalee and I are eloping.”

I kept my face stoic, despite my urge to shout, What did you just say?

“Oregon won’t allow us to marry,” he continued, “so we’re running off to Washington. We just camped here for the night before we set out to cross the hills and the Columbia River.”

“You’re eloping?” Robbie flicked more ash to the ground by our feet.

“That’s right.” Joe nodded.

Gil reddened again and muttered to his brother, “Jesus. Does Washington really allow fairies to marry mulattoes?”

“What did you just say?” Joe threw off the blanket and jumped to his feet.

“He said,” said Robbie, lifting his chin, “you two make a highly peculiar pair. Does your bride-to-be know you were caught diddling some other fellow?”

Joe clenched his hands by his sides. “What pathetic lives you must lead if you have to make up vulgar stories about me.”

“It’s not true, then?” Robbie wedged his cigarette between his teeth and narrowed his eyes. “You’re not a fag?”

“Would you have found me here, wrapped in a blanket with a girl, if I was?”

The twins eyed each other, as if to gauge each other’s opinions. Joe didn’t look back at me, but I could tell from the way he rubbed his hands along the sides of his trousers that the Wittens and that pocketknife terrified him. I kept my face and my body still, worried that the wrong expression or word would bring him harm.

“Prove it to us.” Robbie stepped closer and picked at the end of his knife. His cigarette hung out of the side of his mouth and desecrated the fragrance of the woods. “Kiss her.”

“What?” Joe glanced over his shoulder at me. “No. I’m not giving you a peep show just to prove we love each other.”

“What’s the matter?” Robbie nudged Joe backward by the fist that held that knife. “Do you feel bile rising to your throat over the idea of kissing a colored girl?”

“I think he feels bile,” said Gil, also coming closer, “over the idea of kissing any girl.”

The twins both chuckled, and Joe kept rubbing the sides of his legs.

I pushed myself to my feet, my knees wobbling, and took hold of Joe’s left hand. “Just ignore them, Joey.”

“‘Joey’?” laughed the twins, reminding me of a skinny version of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, standing there side by side, their shoulders shaking, their cheeks bright red. Even their clothing matched—tweed pants, rolled-up shirtsleeves, floppy plaid caps pulled just above ears as large as abalone shells.