Light to the Hills: A Novel (77)

“It’s a shame to carry on a whole life based on misunderstandings and hurt feelings,” Rai said. “With boys working in the mines, you reckon right quick that life is too short for such.”

“Where is this Jessup feller now?” Beady asked.

“He’s laying in a spot back of our cabin a ways, near his still and twenty or so roosters. Finn says he’s set up a shed there where he holes up.”

Beady thought for a good while and shucked another handful of peas. Busy hands made her think clearer, and an idea had begun percolating. Sometimes, in the name of what folks considered fairness, county lawmen missed the mark. Beady didn’t aim for that to happen in this case. If you didn’t dig out the root of the weed permanent-like, come spring, it’d sprout right back twice as determined.

“You know, I remember when ol’ Gripp Jessup was hanging ’round here pretending to be a ready disciple of the Gospel, getting in Jack’s good graces and sidling up to him. Jack was bound and determined he’d dunk that boy in the creek and wash him clean, but Gripp never did feel the Lord’s pull. He was too caught up in his own schemes,” Beady fumed. The last time she’d gotten her dander up like this, a family of raccoons had ransacked the church building, shredding songbooks and leaving their filth behind. Beady had trapped and skinned every last one. “I declare, if he had’a been baptized, so much filth woulda run off him, it might’a poisoned the creek water from here clear downstream to the Mississippi. Way I see it, he done had his chance.”

Amanda looked up from the peas. They’d almost emptied the sack.

“I was counting on you seeing it that way,” Rai said, her voice steady and even. “My boy was fool enough to get mixed up with him, and he’s aiming to make it right by going to the law. Knowing Finn, he might not allow it was made right enough, and the last thing he needs is more worry on his shoulders. If they can land the slippery cuss, the sheriff might come down on Gripp for some of what he done, but he won’t know the whole of it. I got daughters, too.” Rai tossed the last of her peas into the bucket.

“Well, then, looks like we got some work to do.” Beady stood and brushed bits of green shell and pea strings off her lap. “Jack’ll be home directly. Amanda, you and I are gonna have a sit-down with your daddy and set him straight. He shall know the truth, and the truth shall set him free.”

“Do you think he’ll listen, Mama?”

“Oh, he’ll listen all right, if he fancies having a wife to warm his bed at night. I’m like you, Rai—I done lost a child once and don’t aim to go back for a second round of the same. Your daddy’s set to preach another church a couple days from here. Once he’s off in the morning, we’re gonna head back to the MacInteers’ place and settle some accounts.” She held up a finger. “Don’t even say it,” she cautioned her daughter. “I’m leaving Jesus at the house to look after things while I’m gone.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon sharing the day’s work—bringing in wood for the stove, butchering a chicken for supper, boiling a pot of greens, and tending the chickens and goats. Rai kneaded another batch of dough and set it to rise, and Amanda helped Beady gather the few items she needed to bring with her on the journey. They fed and curried Maxine, the draft mare Beady would ride the next day, and by the time the sun dipped almost to the horizon, Jack Wick trotted up the path and headed to the barn on his horse. There was no hiding Junebug, grazing on a tethered pasture line just behind the garden.

“Beady?” he called as his boots clomped up the front steps. She heard him knock the mud off, and he carried them inside in one hand. He stopped at the threshold at the sight of Amanda setting plates at the table.

“What’s this?” he asked. Jack’s voice still held its music, although it held a touch more of a rasp to it in the past few years.

“Hi, Daddy,” said Amanda. “This here’s Rai MacInteer. She visited the church to ask for prayers, if you remember.” Polite to a fault, Jack nodded and gave his attention to Rai. “How do, Miz MacInteer? I do remember your visit. And I believe we may have come to call on your son while he was laid up.”

“That’s a fact,” she replied. “And he’s doing much better now, up and about and healing just fine. If you’ll excuse me, I think I left my wrap in the barn earlier. I’ll just go fetch it before supper.” Rai scooted past Jack and out the door, leaving the little family alone with each other for the first time since before any of them could remember.

“Before you come loose, just hear me,” announced Beady. Jack had once told her he’d married a woman tough as jerky and sweet as scuppernong wine. A thousand times over the years, they’d compromised and bent to one another; she knew Jack felt her worth. Jack had tried to tell her what had caused him to react as he had after Frank’s funeral. He’d done a fair bit of searching and came up with the usual things—pride, hurt, embarrassment, but it went deeper, she knew.

Her whole life, he’d forged Amanda like a piece of iron in his smith, shaping and bending her by teaching and example. How many times he’d repeated the phrase “You’re a Wick.” Anybody in these parts had to grapple with their name. It announced where you were from and, more importantly, who you came from. Being a Wick, he’d told her, was like a wick in a beeswax candle, drawing up virtue and knowledge from your wax to keep your flame a’going. Being a Wick meant reaching back before Jack and Jack’s daddy and even his granddaddy before him. It meant standing firm for the meat of what made you, and in Jack’s particular case, his one and only child was his solitary chance at legacy and him being called as a man of God. He’d surely felt like the martyrs in the early church must have when folks cast stones unto death. When that passel of locals from town had surrounded him and pelted him with their accusations, assailed him with their tales of how Amanda, his one chance at leaving anything to carry on past him in the world, had turned her back on her upbringing and had left him as a fool to be mocked, something had broken in Jack. Something he couldn’t abide. “Beady,” he’d said, “my name is dust.”