The Steep and Thorny Way(70)

I spent the bulk of my time on the oak tree, shaping and shading each leaf, each stripe of bark, until the tree looked precisely as I remembered it. Once I finished fussing over the details, I sat up straight at my desk and studied my creation—forced myself to stare the oak down—as though facing an enemy.

If the tree held on to my etched name, waiting for me to disappear, then I would keep a drawing of it, waiting for its demise.



KU KLUX KLAN MARCH, JACKSON COUNTY, OREGON, 1920s.





CHAPTER 26





HAD I BUT TIME



I LAY IN BED IN MY DAY CLOTHES AND stared up at the candlelight twitching across my ceiling. It still didn’t seem right, leaving a boy marked for death all by himself, unarmed, injured, behind an unlocked stable door.

“Damn it,” I muttered up to the ceiling. “I wish I could have given him my pistol.” I sighed and blinked. “What in the world am I supposed to do?”

No one answered. The wind didn’t even breathe through my curtains.

I waited for Mama and Uncle Clyde to retire to their bedroom and finish opening and closing drawers and get settled in their bed. And then I waited at least a half hour more. The candle burned down to a nub no bigger than half my thumb, and the world outside my window lay still and as dark as a pot of ink.

I didn’t take Necromancer’s Nectar that night, but I did slip out of bed. I grabbed my derringer out of its holster and slid the gun, the lucky sprigs of alfalfa, and my bare feet down inside a pair of big black boots I wore whenever rain soaked the yard. In front of my floor-length mirror, I swiveled my right ankle to make sure the derringer didn’t bulge like a pork chop beneath the boot’s leather, as it did whenever I lugged it around beneath my skirt. If Mama and Uncle Clyde were to catch me prowling around the house, they wouldn’t see I was armed.

“Good,” I said to the mirror with a nod.

I cracked open my door and descended the staircase upon feet that strained to keep from making a sound inside those bunglesome boots. My arches ached from stepping with such caution. My legs moved with a stiff and heavy gait that seemed to fill my calves with sandbags.

Down in the kitchen, I fetched the block of ice from the icebox and chipped large chunks into a dishcloth. I then grabbed our picnic basket—now empty and clean from the day before—and packed it with the ice, an apple, cheese, bread, some bandages and scissors from Uncle Clyde’s first-aid kit we kept under the sink, and a metal canteen filled up to the screw-top lid with water. I retrieved some oil for Joe’s lantern. Silence reigned over the world outside the window above the sink, and only a hint of the glow of whiskey stills peeked above the tops of the trees. Or maybe I only imagined that faint glimmer of orange. Maybe the world slept uneasily, holding its breath, waiting to see what I would do next.

I ventured outside with the basket and the can of oil and bolted across the grass as though a whole herd of Elston boys were chasing me down. I made it to the stable in well under a minute but forced myself not to scare Joe by bursting inside. Instead, I creaked open the door with the softest of movements and stole into the blackness within.

“Joe?” I whispered, closing the door behind me.

“I hope to God that’s just you, Hanalee,” he said from over in the corner where I’d left him.

“It’s me. I brought you ice for your nose and some food and some oil for the lamp.” I attempted to walk in his direction but couldn’t see a darn thing. “Can you light a match?”

“Here”—he shifted about—“give me the oil, and I’ll light the lantern, but just for a short while. I don’t want anyone seeing the flame through the slats in the wood.”

I crept over to him in the dark as best as I could and set the basket and the oil beside him. “Can you see at all in here?” I asked. “Have your eyes adjusted to the dark?”

“Sort of.”

I held my breath and waited while he fumbled around with the lantern and the oil. After a hiss and a quick whiff of sulfur, a match flared to life. Joe’s swollen nose and red-rimmed eyes glowed in the wavering light. My stomach dipped. He lit the lantern and shook out the match. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

“I know, but it seemed wrong to leave you out here with an unlocked door and no treatment for your pain. I’m sure you’re also thirsty and famished.” I sat down next to his outstretched legs and pulled the canteen out of the basket. “How are you feeling?”

“Well”—he took the container and unscrewed the lid—“I could sure use some hooch right about now. That’s not what’s in here, is it?”

I smiled. “You’re not going to find any liquor in a house occupied by Clyde Koning.”

Joe chuckled under his breath. “A boy can dream, can’t he?” He tipped back his head and took a swig of water.

I glanced over my shoulder to ensure I had remembered to close the door behind me.

Joe swallowed and came up for a breath. “What is it?”

“I just wanted to make sure I shut the door.” I shifted back toward him. “Do you think the boys would truly take the time to head out looking for you? Or would those Wittens be too busy getting drunk in that cabin we found near the creek?”

Joe shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. I suppose it depends on how embarrassed Laurence felt over what I told you.” He screwed the cap back into place. “He must be pretending awfully hard to be something that he isn’t if he’s running around with the Klan and a girl like Opal.”