The Steep and Thorny Way(65)

“They hanged my father, Joe.” The hand cupping my eyes wavered. I lowered my fingers to my jaw. “They hanged him from the oak tree at the Dry Dock that Christmas Eve.”

Joe slid his other leg into the drawers and pulled the waistband up to his navel. He turned around and faced me, and his eyes softened. “They hanged him?”

I nodded. “They got to him before you even drove down that road. They raised him off the ground by his neck—a mock lynching. A ‘necktie party.’ They told him to get out of town. His left arm hurt badly afterward, and he could scarcely breathe, and that’s why he tripped into the road in front of your car.”

Joe picked up his trousers from the ground. “He came out of nowhere.”

“You shouldn’t have been driving after drinking, Joe. Uncle Clyde said he’s ninety-five percent sure Daddy was already dying before you reached him—his heart was failing. But you shouldn’t have been out there like that.”

“I know.”

“It was stupid. You could have killed people.”

“I know.”

“I hate you for that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I hate you.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“I can’t fully forgive you.”

“I know.”

“But I don’t want you to die.” I wiped my hands on the sides of my dress. “Put your trousers on. We are not going to let a bunch of bigots put us in graves in the prime of our youth.”

Without a word, he bent over and stepped into his pant legs.

I picked up his shirt. “Where are the rest of your belongings?”

“I hid them inside your stable.” He buttoned up the pants.

“Come on.” I tossed his shirt at him. “Throw the sleeves over your arms, and let’s get going. You can button up later.”

He did as I asked, sliding his hands through the openings in the sleeves and shrugging his shoulders into the shirt.

We circled back around the inlet. My flooded shoes squeaked and slipped on dirt and mud, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get out of those woods. I grabbed hold of a low branch and swung myself around the fir that marked the entrance to the shore of the main pond.

“Joe?” asked someone up ahead, from the opposite side of the shed.

I froze. Joe edged closer, but I put up a hand to stop him.

“Is that you?” asked the voice again—a familiar voice. A boy’s voice I’d known all my life, although it had deepened over time. Deepened and hardened.

I peeked back at Joe, and he mouthed the name Laurence.

Before I could duck back behind the fir, Laurence stepped around from the front of the shed.

His shoulders jerked when he saw me. “Hanalee?”

“Go back, go back!” I said to Joe, and we turned and dashed back around the inlet with our feet squelching through the mud.

Joe reached behind himself and grabbed my hand, and he hoisted me to higher ground above the slippery bank.

“Stop running!” called Laurence.

I glanced over my shoulder and spotted him brushing through the leaves no more than twenty feet behind us.

With my hand still in his, Joe darted us down another slope and around a bend. We circled so fast, my head spun, and before I knew what was happening, Joe was pulling me by his side on the ground behind a downed spruce, amid a patch of ferns that towered above us. We lay there and panted with our hands cupped over our mouths.

Laurence ran across a cluster of nearby leaves, and his feet came to a stop not far beyond our log.

“Joe?” he called out, and he sounded as though he were turning around a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

Joe lay behind me, his heart beating against my back. He tucked his arm around my waist, as though creating an extra barrier between Laurence and me.

“Hanalee?” called Laurence. “I don’t have a gun. You don’t have to hide.”

I willed every muscle in my body to remain still. Silent breaths escaped my nose, and I kept my mouth clamped shut out of fear of releasing an unintended gasp.

“Come on.” Laurence’s shoes trampled through the undergrowth beyond the log. “Stop hiding. I need to talk to you both.”

With a slow and cautious movement, Joe lifted his arm off my middle and eased his hand down the side of my thigh. I stiffened at first, then tried not to laugh, for his fingers tickled.

I peeked over my shoulder at him, my eyebrows raised, but he just shook his head and mouthed, Shh.

“You’ve got to get out of here—now,” said Laurence, still rustling through the nearby leaves and grasses. “The plan is to torture and terrify you, Joe.”

Joe grabbed hold of my skirt and lifted the hem past my knee, exposing the leather of my holster and the bulge of the pistol inside.

I nodded and reached down for the gun beneath the flap, but Joe took hold of the wooden grip first.

“Let me take care of this,” he whispered into my ear.

“You don’t know how to shoot,” I mouthed to him over my shoulder.

“He’s my problem. Let me take care of him.”

“No,” I squeaked, louder than I’d intended.

“Joe?” asked Laurence.

Joe flinched, and I managed to slide my hand under his and grab the pistol.