The Steep and Thorny Way(48)

“I’m so scared of losing you, Hanalee.” She tipped her forehead against mine. “You’re the only person here who’s worried about what will happen to me, and I’m terrified of what’s going to happen to you.”

I pulled her close and held her against my chest, my arms locked around her back. Boisterous slides of trombones and the loud belches of tubas ricocheted over the headstones around us, but I squeezed my eyes shut and pushed the picnic away.

“I think something unspeakable happened to my father that Christmas Eve,” I said against her shoulder. “Something more damaging than Joe’s car. Something related to the boys’ desire to hunt down Joe.” I lifted my head so that we stood face-to-face again. “Have you ever heard anything about the Dry Dock being dangerous for nonwhites?”

She knitted her sunshine-blond eyebrows. “I don’t think so.”

“Have you heard anything about the owners’ ties to the Klan?”

“I . . .” She grimaced. “Well . . . they do have that sign out front.”

“What sign?”

“Do you ever eat at the Dry Dock?”

“No.” I shook my head. “We tend to avoid it, but I’ve always thought it’s because Mama doesn’t like their food.”

She rubbed her lips together. “Well, they have a sign on the door that says, ‘We reserve the right to serve whom we please,’ but I always thought it was a nice sign. I thought they were saying they didn’t want their customers making a fuss over any of their clientele.”

My stomach tightened. “I’m not so sure that’s a nice sign, Fleur.”

“Fleur!” called a male voice to my right. “What’re you doing with her?”

I turned my head and found Laurence standing just outside the cemetery entrance, hand in hand with Opal Rickert, a brunette with bobbed hair and a red dress that showed off her skinny knees.

“You stay away from my sister, Hanalee Denney.” He let go of Opal and ran toward me.

I took my hands off Fleur and shuffled backward, tripping over my feet.

Laurence grabbed hold of both my arms, and the next thing I knew, my back slammed against an obelisk, and Laurence shoved his face into mine.

“Why’d you have to go and run off with Joe?” He squeezed my arms by my sides and shook me against the stone. “That was the stupidest thing you could have done.”

“What are you doing, Laurence?” asked Opal from behind him with a lift of her plucked and painted eyebrows. “Picking a fight with a girl?”

“Go back to the picnic,” he called over his shoulder. “Take Fleur with you.”

“Let go of her,” said Fleur, running her hands through her hair, and I again saw the bruises beneath her sleeves.

“Go back to the picnic!” he shouted. “Go! Before I hurt her. I swear, I’ll hurt her if you don’t leave immediately.”

The girls retreated, for Laurence’s tone carried a rage that chilled me to my core and would have sent me running, too, if he didn’t have me pinned against a dead man’s marker.

He returned his blue eyes to me and spoke so close to my face, his hot breath blew into my mouth. “You two should have just kept running. Why’d you come back?”

“Joe . . .” My teeth chattered; it took all the courage I possessed to find my voice. “He didn’t want . . . we didn’t have . . .”

“I want you both gone and far from here. Do you hear me?” He shook me again. “Get out of this state, and take him with you. You’re going to get yourselves killed. We’re planning a necktie party for him. Do you know what that is?”

“No.”

“It’s when a person gets raised by a rope from the branch of a tree—not long enough to die, but enough to get scared into running out of town for good.”

I froze. “W-w-what do you mean ‘we,’ Laurence? What are you a part of?”

He loosened his grip and stepped back a foot. The sun shone down on his golden hair and skin, brightening the soft smattering of freckles on the bridge of his nose, just as the rays used to set his skin and his eyelashes aglow whenever we climbed stacks of hay in my parents’ field.

“Why do you hate me so much, Laurence?” I asked.

“My family comes first.” He placed his hands on his hips, looking tall and sturdy and strong—or at least like a boy pretending to be all those things. “To keep us all safe, we can’t afford to associate with a mulatto any longer.”

I sank back against the stone and felt my vertebrae become no stronger than blades of river grass.

Don’t ever let them hurt you, Hanalee, Laurence had told me himself when he held his arms around me and taught me to shoot his father’s gun. Don’t ever let them make you feel small.

I stepped forward and spat in his face—right beneath his right eye, with those sun-streaked lashes I used to want to kiss—and I walked away from the cemetery.





CHAPTER 17





THE WEEPING BROOK


SOMETHING HAD CHANGED IN THE air by the time I came around the side of the church and rejoined the Fourth of July picnic. The music had stopped, and an unnatural stillness hung over the grounds. Everyone shaded their eyes with their hands and faced the main highway, where Sheriff Rink’s black patrol car reflected the afternoon sun.