The Saints of Swallow Hill(92)

Their long-ago voices accompanied him as he came to familiar bends and turns, and he recalled how they’d said these trees would outlast them all. He stared up, and up, until he got a crick in his neck. They’d done well. They stood tall and graceful, with a beautiful evergreen plume at their tops. They bent and swayed in the wind, and as the breeze brushed over the needles, they produced a murmuring sound as if whispering a welcome home. Next, he came to the creek where he and Sudie May used to plunge their bare feet into the cool water on a hot summer day. Finally, after some time, and when he’d seen all he wanted, he retraced his steps and made his way toward the family graveyard. Through the trees, he could see the roof of the house. His parents had been buried side by side, no different from how they’d lived their lives together. He laid the blooms across the top of the gravestone, took off his hat, and bowed his head. He expressed his sorrow for not having been there for them at the end, told them he loved them and hoped they’d known that.

When he was done, he thought back on how they’d been with each other. Pap hadn’t been the easiest man to love because Mother said he was hardheaded. Funny, ’cause Pap said the same of her. He reckoned he’d come by some of it himself. What they’d had was what he wanted. Someone by his side, who loved him despite himself. He wanted stability, to know how each day would end, and to share it with one person. He hadn’t been sure of this until Rae Lynn Cobb. The biggest question about his future rested on her, and she didn’t even know it.

Back at the house, he spotted the women in the garden, along with Norma and Joey, doing their share of picking. The area of the garden they worked had tomatoes, squash, and okra. The chickens strutted along the edge, following where they went, waiting on someone to toss them a scrap. Here and there, the ground was littered with the vegetables unfit to eat, and when someone would lob a tomato or squash, they’d flap their wings enthusiastically, making a run for it.

Sudie May waved and called out to him. “We’re about to finish up.”

Cornelia waved too, and bent back down to her work. Rae Lynn was a row apart from everyone. She hadn’t bothered looking up, even when Sudie May spoke. His sister approached, wiping off her face with the back of her hand, and it struck him how much she resembled their mother, having matured and changed since the last time he’d seen her. Her face, arms, and lower legs were tanned brown. She had the same light-colored blue eyes he did, a trait of Pap’s, but she had their mother’s hair, dark brown with red highlights. She still had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose same as when she’d been a girl.

Some part of his earlier daydreams about the future went a little haywire when she said, “Who is this Rae Lynn Cobb?”

His attention turned back to the two women working in the garden, and he admitted, “I ain’t real sure.”

“You can’t hardly get two to three words outta her. I asked her about her family; she said she was raised in an orphanage. I asked her how she’d come to work at the camp, and she got this real peculiar look on her face. Then Cornelia cut in and asked me some silly question, and it was obvious she was trying to change the subject. Rae Lynn’s been working off by herself ever since.”

Del said, “She’s got a hell of a story, least the parts I know. She come to Swallow Hill pretending to be a man.”

Sudie May said, “She did?”

“Yep, that’s why her hair is short, though it was a lot shorter’n at when I first met her. She wore men’s clothes. Said her name was Ray Cobb. Everyone there could tell something won’t right, and for a while, we thought she was some runaway boy.”

“Well, I’ll be.”

“Yep, she worked alongside the men, stayed in the single men’s quarters. It won’t until this hateful son of a bitch, feller by the name of Crow, put her in the sweat box when she couldn’t make count that we found out she was a woman. She was in the thing for three days. Liked to have died. Cornelia nursed her back to health. They’s close. I suspect Cornelia probably knows her story. Anyway, we left the camp after the bastard, Crow, tried to dump tar on her. He missed and got Cornelia instead. That’s why her hair’s cut off like it is.”

“What on earth for?”

“Cornelia’s husband, Otis, said Rae Lynn kissed her. Said he caught’em.”

Sudie May shot a surprised look at Rae Lynn, then her eyes came back to him. “Do you believe him?”

“I believe he saw kissing, but as to who instigated it?” He shrugged.

Sudie May said, “I reckon she’s got her reasons for doing what she done, the disguise and all. A woman doing such sounds desperate.”

Rae Lynn and Cornelia were now working side by side, each in a separate row still, but close enough to talk, and he could tell they were.

Sudie May said, “Them camps can be horrible. I reckon we was lucky.”

“We were ’cause this place won’t like any of the ones we was at with Pap and Granddaddy. There were some good people, but Cornelia’s husband, Otis, and Crow, they were the worst kind of trouble.”

“How’d you end up there? Last we heard, you were working on some big farm in Clinch County.”

Del rubbed his neck. “I was. Part of what happened was my own fault, I reckon. I done something I shouldn’t’ve done.”

Sudie May narrowed her eyes, and again, he was reminded of his mother, with the same sternness that saw a different meaning behind his words.