Where the Crawdads Sing(63)

“Well yeah, that’s a good point. Anyhow, we don’t have to play gumshoe anymore. We can set right here drinkin’ coffee and let the ladies of this town waltz in and outta here with all the goods. I’ll go get the bus schedules.”

Joe returned fifteen minutes later.

“Well, you’re right,” he said. “See here, it would be possible to bus from Greenville to Barkley Cove and then back again all in one night. Easy, really.”

“Yeah, plenty of time between the two buses to push somebody off the fire tower. I say we get a warrant.”





33.


    The Scar



1968

In the winter of 1968, Kya sat at her kitchen table one morning, sweeping orange and pink watercolors across paper, creating the plump form of a mushroom. She had finished her book on seabirds and now worked on a guide to mushrooms. Already had plans for another on butterflies and moths.

Black-eyed peas, red onions, and salt ham boiled in the old dented pot on the woodstove, which she still preferred to the new range. Especially in winter. The tin roof sang under a light rain. Then, suddenly the sounds of a truck laboring through sand came down her lane. Rumbling louder than the roof. Panic rising, she stepped to the window and saw a red pickup maneuvering the muddy ruts.

Kya’s first thought was to run, but the truck was already pulling up to the porch. Hunched down below the windowsill, she watched a man in a gray-green military uniform step out. He just stood there, truck door ajar, looking through the woods, down the path toward the lagoon. Then, closing the door softly, he jogged through the rain to the porch door and knocked.

She cussed. He was probably lost, would ask directions and go on, but she didn’t want to deal with him. She could hide here in the kitchen, hope he went away. But she heard him call. “Yo! Anybody home? Hello!”

Annoyed yet curious, she walked through the newly furnished sitting room to the porch. The stranger, tall with dark hair, stood on the front step holding the screen door open, five feet from her. His uniform seemed stiff enough to stand on its own, as if it were holding him together. The breast of his jacket was covered with colorful rectangular medals. But most eye-catching of all was a jagged red scar that cut his face in half from his left ear to the top of his lips. Kya gasped.

In an instant she returned to the Easter Sunday about six months before Ma left for good. Singing “Rock of Ages,” she and Ma walked arm in arm through the sitting room to the kitchen and gathered up the brilliantly colored eggs they had painted the night before. The other kids were out fishing, so she and Ma had time to hide the eggs, then get the chicken and biscuits into the oven. The brothers and sisters were too old to hunt for treats, but they would run around searching, pretending not to find them, then holding each discovered treasure high in the air, laughing.

Ma and Kya were leaving the kitchen with their baskets of eggs and chocolate bunnies from the Five and Dime, just as Pa rounded the corner from the hall.

Yanking Kya’s Easter bonnet from her head and waving it around, he screamed at Ma, “Whar ya git the money for these fancy thangs? Bonnets and shiny leather shoes? Them prissy eggs and chocolate bunnies? Say. Whar?”

“Come on, Jake, please hush. It’s Easter; this is for the kids.”

He shoved Ma backward. “Ya out whoring, that’s what. That how you git the money? Tell me now.” He grabbed Ma by the arms and shook her so hard her face seemed to rattle around her eyes, which stayed very still and wide open. Eggs tumbled from the basket and rolled in wobbly pastels across the floor.

“Pa, please, stop!” Kya cried out, then sobbed.

He lifted his hand and slapped Kya hard across the cheek. “Shut up, ya prissy-pot crybaby! Git that silly-looking dress and fancy shoes off ya. Them’s whorin’ clothes.”

She ducked down, holding her face, chasing after Ma’s hand-painted eggs.

“I’m talkin’ to ya, woman! Whar ya gettin’ yo’ money?” He lifted the iron fire poker from the corner and moved toward Ma.

Kya screamed as loud as she could and grabbed at Pa’s arm as he slammed the poker across Ma’s chest. Blood popped out on the flowery sundress like red polka dots. Then a big body moved down the hall and Kya looked up to see Jodie tackle Pa from behind, sending them both sprawling across the floor. Her brother got between Ma and Pa and hollered for Kya and Ma to run, and they did. But before she turned, Kya saw Pa raise the poker and whack Jodie across the face, his jaw twisting grossly, blood spewing. The scene played out in her mind now in a flash. Her brother crumbling onto the floor, lying among purple-pink eggs and chocolate bunnies. She and Ma running through palmettos, hiding in brush. Her dress bloody, Ma kept saying it was fine, the eggs wouldn’t break, and they could still cook the chicken. Kya didn’t understand why they stayed hidden there—she was sure her brother was dying, needed their help, but she was too afraid to move. They waited for a long time and then snuck back, looking through the windows to make sure Pa was gone.

Jodie lay cold on the floor, blood pooled around him, and Kya cried that he was dead. But Ma roused him and moved him to the sofa, where she stitched up his face with her sewing needle. When all was quiet, Kya snatched her bonnet from the floor and ran fast through the woods and threw it with all her might into the saw grass.

Now she looked into the eyes of the stranger standing on her porch and said, “Jodie.”