Light to the Hills: A Novel (79)
He’d almost dozed off when the name hit him like a thunderclap. The boy danced in his mind like a puppet, blinking those dark eyes, just like Frankie used to do. That was it! Ol’ Frankie Turnbull. Gripp laughed to himself, thinking of the good times the two of them had had before he’d been forced to end their partnership.
His eyes flew open when the thought struck him. What if that was Frankie’s boy? By gum, the timeline would be about right. If the boy was around, maybe Frank’s ol’ girl had stuck around, too. Gripp grinned at the memory of her, and his hand crept mechanically to his crotch. He reckoned they could get reacquainted. His wheels spun. If she was one of them book women, it wouldn’t be that hard to figure out her route and arrange a little meeting. His pulse quickened. Wouldn’t that be a sweet opportunity? Just thinking of it made him thirsty.
Gripp took another long swig from the jar and smacked his lips. A quick nap to clear his head would be just the thing. He was snoring loud enough to shake the timbers in no time.
Chapter 24
Beady and Rai had made no bones about it. When they hit town, Amanda would stay with Miles and the others while they went on up the mountain. She’d had more than her share of Gripp Jessup, and they stood firm on leaving her out of the last bit of it. They’d left less than twenty minutes after Jack Wick had set off for his preaching arrangement. Odds were, when he showed up for the Gospel meeting, there’d be one or two wanting to get married or buried while he was at it. It always took longer than he figured on. Beady scrawled a note for him and left it on the kitchen table next to a slab of pie he’d be sure to notice. She’d gone down the mountain, it read, and he should collect her from the MacInteers’ by suppertime the next day.
They had Junebug and Maxine ready to go in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Rai and Amanda were already seated astride the mule while Beady secured the door.
“I gotta run in the church a minute,” she said, leading Maxine down the path and tying her up outside. She dashed into the dim-lit building and emerged carrying a solid box draped with one of her old flour-sack tablecloths. She stooped by the church steps and yanked up a handful of mint, which she stuffed beneath the cloth. She positioned Maxine near the church steps so that she could reach up behind the saddle and lash the box securely on top of the horse’s broad rump.
“Mama?” Amanda said. The question hung in the air.
“Needed some supplies,” she replied. “Never you mind. Best get on the way.”
They made good time down the mountain, singing and chatting in the way of mountain women, sharing tales and tidbits about family and friends. Amanda and Beady filled in the gaps of the past years—Amanda telling about Mooney, the WPA job as a packhorse librarian, and the folks she’d met, Beady going on about the garden, the church, and folks Amanda might know who’d passed on or fallen ill.
“How about fellers, Amanda?” ventured Beady. “Anybody you might be sweet on?”
“There might be one,” she allowed. “But it’s tangled right now. We’ll have to see.”
“There ain’t a knot in this world the good Lord can’t pick apart.” Rai smiled at Amanda as she spoke. “Just needs a bit of time. Now then, I been thinking ’bout Gripp. Sass says he’s short two fingers.”
“Way I figure,” said Amanda, “that was Frank’s last good act on earth before Gripp drowned him in the rising creek. I ’spect he went down fighting. The sheriff found Frank’s gun near the shore.”
“Finn said Gripp told him he lost them fingers in the mines at first, but then changed his story to allow a feller shot him in the hand,” said Rai.
“You can’t believe a word that leaves that feller’s lips,” spat Beady. “That list he kept? Names of folks he killed this way or that over the years? There’s a well inside that boy that bubbles up nothing but blackness.”
Amanda nodded. “You know, I remember Alice, one of the WPA girls, said she’d met a group of no-counts on her route. I declare, the way she described one in particular made me turn cold. I reckon I suspected even then it coulda been him come back to this area. I wish I’d have said something. Maybe Sass—”
Rai stopped her. “Only thing that might’a done is sink Finn in deeper. If he’d a’ known who Gripp was to you, what he’d done, he might be tied up in more than bootlegging. I know my boy, and kingdom come couldn’t stop him from keeping you from harm.”
Amanda blushed to the roots of her hair.
Rai continued, “Finn and Sass told me where the shack’s at, back of our place. Him being that close, it was prob’ly a matter of time before he set his sights on the girls. No way in the world Finn woulda led him there if he’d seen Gripp’s true colors. It’s no excuse, but Finn was keen to keep out of the mines after that cave-in. He wasn’t thinking right.”
“Nobody blames Finn,” said Amanda. “Plenty of folks would’ve done the same.”
“That shack’s where Finn says Gripp keeps his birds and supplies. Sounded to me like he had Finn doing most of the actual work while he drank all day and came back in the evenings drunk, sleeping it off until midmorning.”
Beady started humming the chorus of a hymn. “I’ve about had all the talk I can stomach of Gripp Jessup,” she said. “I reckon we all know what he’s made of by now.”