Light to the Hills: A Novel (72)

Sass stood up to let her mother rise, and Amanda searched Finn’s eyes for an explanation. His firm-set mouth and squared shoulders told her all she needed to know. They were going to the sheriff to report what Sass had overheard. Which meant Finn would have to take his chances and give his own testimony about the bootlegging when he told them where to find the still and what routes they ran their whiskey. Which also meant when he turned himself in, there was a good chance he might not come back for a time.

“I’ll help you,” Amanda said, blinking briskly. She bit her lip and nodded once to him. Amanda meant it as a salute to him, a signal that he was doing a good thing, even if—especially if—his own stakes in it might be a high price. Amanda and Rai got busy pulling supplies from the larder, the last of the dried apples from the past autumn, jerky, potatoes, and a few salted slices of ham with corn pone.

Harley headed back out. “I’ll get Cricket to help me get up the horses. That’s gonna leave you without for a few days.” Rai nodded.

Sass swallowed hard and wrapped her arms around Finn, burying her face in his side. He laughed, but it rang hollow. “What’s all this? It’s a trip down the mountain is all.”

“I know it.” Her voice was muffled.

Rai gave him a satchel. “There’s extra socks in there and that new shirt Fern stayed up stitching last night.”

Amanda and Sass peeped out the window as Harley and Finn packed their things on the horses and filled jugs with water from the well. They watched as Rai handed them the dinner pails and lingered a moment, her hands and lips moving. Rai’s cheeks colored, and her hands fluttered like birds in a cage, startling the horses. Finn’s hands twisted the reins into knots as he listened and blamed, Amanda knew, himself.

Rai collected the books they’d left on the porch and brought them inside with her. Her mouth was set firm. “Sass,” she said, “Finn told me about the list you’d found.”

Sass shrugged. “Reckon the sheriff can use it?”

“I imagine so.” Rai sighed. “That feller seems to have found more than his share of trouble. Finn says the cur told him he had his fingers shot off by a Smith & Wesson .22. Wish whoever done it had aimed a bit different.”

The hairs rose on the back of Amanda’s neck. “What’d he say this feller’s name is?”

“Goes by Spider, Finn says, on account of him having only eight fingers.”

“What’s he look like?”

Sass shrugged and screwed up her face. “Not near as tall as Finn. Got a dark beard and a chipped tooth in front. Mean, dark eyes and a long scar up one arm. When he smiles, it ain’t nice. No warmth in it. Makes you feel kinda cold and nervous.”

“And what’s on this list?” Amanda pressed.

Rai glanced at Sass. “Finn says it looks to be names. Lot of ’em are fellers who died in the cave-in Finn was in. He didn’t recognize all of ’em. Like he was keeping a tally,” she spat. “If the sheriff gets a’holt of him, hanging will be too easy.”

“Sass, do you remember any of the other names on the list?” Amanda’s voice was unnaturally high.

“Reckon I read it enough times. Deputy Ed Hunter, Frank Turnbull, Toady Newsome, and the six miners. There might have been some initials at the end.”

“Turnbull,” Amanda muttered, turning the name over in her mouth. “It can’t be the same.”

“You know something?” asked Rai. “Guess we don’t hold no secrets between us no more.” That was true enough, and although Sass had feared releasing her secret, it turned out knowing other women on her side were bearing it with her had replaced that fear with a kind of grateful kinship.

Amanda looked out to lay eyes on Miles, who was laughing and using their pile of sticks to build a lean-to hideaway. Harley and Finn were checking the horses’ feet and finishing up the last of the heavier chores. She lowered herself into a chair, placed her hands flat on the table in front of her, and began. She told them about Gripp Jessup and the night Miles was born, the changes she’d seen in her husband, and running into the woman at the graveyard after his funeral. She remembered the sheriff coming to her door with Frank’s gun, how Frank had been found drowned in the creek, and how the barbs of gossip worked their way into her parents and caused the rift between them that had never been mended.

“He must have come back,” Amanda said, finally. “Counting on a different sheriff and using a different name.”

When she had finished, she drew in a deep, wavering breath and raised her eyes to Rai. Sass sat on the bed with her knees tucked up to her chin and her eyes wet.

“That woman at the graveyard asked after Frank Rye,” Amanda said. “Not Turnbull. But when I heard that name, I remembered something Frank said once. He told me about his granddaddy Turnbull, who came from way away near Memphis, Tennessee. Frank admired him, said he was a river man, working boats on the Mississippi. Maybe Rye was never his name at all. Maybe it was Turnbull all along and Gripp knew that, encouraged him to change it so it’d be easier to cut loose of the law. There was so much I didn’t know about Frank, it wouldn’t be a surprise to know his name was just one more thing.”

“Lord a’mercy, girl,” breathed Rai. “What you done been through.”

“Nothing to be done for it now,” Amanda said. “Guess that’s long in the past, although sometimes the memory of it all is clear as creek water. Hearing Sass here bravely tell her bit got me to thinking about my own. If Gripp killed my Frank and put it on a list, I’d wager Spider’s name is just another lie he’s telling.”