Let Me Die in His Footsteps

22

ANNIE’S FIRST THOUGHT had been to return the cards to Ellis and tell him she didn’t know who they belonged to. She would make a big show of telling him all the folks she questioned-Mama, Daddy, Grandma, Caroline, even the sheriff. But Abraham took the cards so Annie has nothing to return and no way to explain what became of them unless she tells the truth.

All her life, Annie has kept an eye out for the Baines. If it rattles, choose a different path. If it looks like a Baine, do the same. She’ll walk no closer than the fence. She’ll tell him she lost the cards and she doesn’t know where they came from. They’re just plain old cards. Faded and tattered and all bent up. Could have come from anywhere. From the drugstore, most likely. Or maybe the market where they sell playing cards near the batteries.

He won’t see her coming until she’s reached the barn, especially if she hunches down as she walks uphill through the lavender. The fields will be perfect for Sunday. Daddy has a way of picking the most perfect day. He’ll get up early that morning, Annie and Caroline too, and they’ll cut all the bundles to be sold. Fresh-cut, Grandma says. That’s the secret. That’s the thing that keeps folks coming back.

Daddy and Annie will reach deep into the bushes, grab a handful of the stems-Annie, not Caroline, because Annie’s hands are much larger-hack the bunch at its base with a rounded knife and snap a band around the whole of it. They’ll layer the bundles in a flatbed wagon Daddy will drag from row to row, and Caroline will tie off each bouquet with an eight-inch purple ribbon.

The lavender oil from last year’s crop is already distilled, bottled, and stored in the lower kitchen cabinets, where it’ll stay cool and safe from light. There will be more baking to do as the week comes to a close, and this year, there will be a special cake-a wedding cake. Harvest on the morning of the fourth Sunday in June, or a Sunday thereabouts-when that flatbed wagon is piled high with lavender bundles, the purple blossoms dripping off one side, the satin ribbons dripping off the other-is the one time Daddy might say he likes lavender farming better than tobacco farming.

But the real work will begin after the fourth Sunday. They’ll harvest the rest of the fields. They’ll cut and bundle, and Daddy will drive it to Louisville. They’ll next start to distill the oil and then prepare for next year’s crop and hope for a mild winter. Eventually, they’ll set up the trays to start new seedlings, and Daddy will stay awake all night to make sure the warmers don’t fail. The coming of the lavender will begin again.

As Annie passes through the rows, trying not to let her skirt brush against the stems and stir up the odor any more than has already been stirred by the heat of the day, the truth starts pushing its way up and out. She feels an obligation to Ellis Baine for being so kind as to deny her being the daughter of Joseph Carl. It might bring some peace to all of them, to both families, if she were to offer up this truth. At the top of the hill, Grandpa’s tobacco barn stands to her left. The rock fence is straight ahead, and Ellis Baine is still leaning there against the well, waiting. Annie steps up to the fence that stretches to the road on one end and farther than she knows on the other, presses her hands flat on top, hoists herself over, and walks a few steps toward Ellis Baine.

“Abraham Pace,” she says, knowing the moment she says it, she has made a mistake. This won’t bring peace of any kind. But she’s done it and she’s put something in motion, and now she can’t stop.

“Abraham Pace,” she says in a louder voice, so Ellis will be certain to hear. “He saw me holding them and took them from me. Said he was sure glad I found them. Said they missed them when they sat down to play cards.”

Ellis nods. She had expected her answer to matter to him, that it would mean something important, but he leans there, picking the bark off a twig, not making any show of being upset or carrying on in any way.

“Why do you care about an old deck of cards?” Annie says. “What’s them belonging to Abraham Pace mean?”

Besides driving stakes for Mrs. Baine’s tomatoes, Daddy has done other things for her over the years. Mama never liked him going up there, said a person never knew what might happen, but Daddy always said it was the least they could do. He said it like her being alone in that house without her boys to help her keep it up was largely Mama and Daddy’s fault. It’s the least I could do, he always said when he would come home from hammering a sheet of plywood on her roof or replacing a few rotted boards on her porch.

“That boy down there hollering for you,” Ellis says, ignoring Annie’s question about the cards and Abraham Pace. “You see that boy in this well?”

“No.”

“Betting he wishes you did.”

Might as well mow it all down, Daddy said the last time he went to Mrs. Baine’s place. He was there to fix a broken-out window and couldn’t hardly get a new window to fit because the house had so settled it was no longer anywhere close to square. But in the few short weeks Ellis Baine has been back, he’s stripped away the clutter. He’s toted off rusted, twisted scraps of metal and the bones of discarded furniture, all of it tossed out on the porch or along the side of the house. Ellis has mowed down the grass and turned under the weeds. Grandma says he’s cleaning up the place so it can begin again with new folks.

“You got a family?” Annie asks.

“Couple nieces. Bundle of nephews.”

“None of your own?”

He shakes his head.

“Never married?”

“Nope.”

“Is that because of my mama?” Annie asks. “Did you love her?”

“Should have,” Ellis says, digging a thumbnail under a stubborn piece of bark. “If I hadn’t been such a damn fool, probably would have. Plenty of fellows are fools when they’re young.”

“She loved you.”

He shakes his head.

“Then why does it make her so sad to see you?”

“Not sadness.”

“Then what?”

“It’s regret, I suppose.”

“What’s she regretting?”

He points his nearly bald stick at Annie. “Not telling you that. None of your damn business.” And while he’s pointing and cursing, he’s smiling too. Almost smiling. “Truth?” he asks.

Annie nods.

“As much as I’m a damn fool for not loving a woman like your mama, she’s probably figuring to be a damn fool for ever thinking she was in love with a man like me.”

Annie says nothing, mostly because she doesn’t understand what Ellis has said. So instead of trying to talk, she works on remembering his exact words so she can keep on thinking about it later and maybe piece it together.

“You ought get back home now,” Ellis says.

Annie thought Ellis Baine had pulled out all the tomatoes, but walking toward the well, toward Ellis Baine, who has gone back to picking the last of the bark from that twig, she sees a few yet grow. He picked good ones to save. They’re waxy and green, smaller and newer than the tangled plants that had been here before, but soon enough, they’ll grow too top-heavy to stand on their own.

“You still got those stakes you took out?” she asks.

Ellis pushes off the well, cocks his brows at Annie because now he knows she’s been watching him in the days since he came back, and walks toward the house.

“String too,” Annie shouts after him. “String of some kind.”

She’s snapping off some of the top buds so the plants will stop growing up and start growing out when she hears Daddy.

“Annie?”

She looks to one side and then the other.

“Annie, what are you doing?”

She stands and turns. He’s there, just this side of the fence.

“What are you doing over here?”

But before Annie can answer, before she can tell about the cards belonging to Abraham Pace and the stakes Daddy drove for Mrs. Baine and tying up the last of the tomatoes so they fare better than the rest, Ellis Baine walks out from behind his house, a bundle of white twine slung over his shoulder and three of Daddy’s stakes in his left hand. He stops when he sees Daddy, stands looking at him for a time, and then walks closer.

“What’s he done?” Daddy says.

“Nothing, Daddy.”

Daddy grabs Annie’s arm and yanks her toward him. She cries out from it hurting so bad. She stumbles and trips, falling at Daddy’s feet.

“What’s he done to you?” he shouts down into her face.

Ellis Baine lunges in Annie’s direction, but as quick as he makes that move, he backs off. Like he did in the Hollerans’ kitchen, he holds his hands out to the side.

“Just staking tomatoes,” he says, backing away. “I’ll go. No need to haul the girl around like that.”

Daddy yanks Annie back to her feet, and she can’t help but cry out again.

“You get home.”

Daddy pushes Annie behind him, and Abraham is there. He grabs on where Daddy let go. Big as his hands are, he doesn’t pinch her the way Daddy did.

By the time Annie gets herself righted and has peeled Abraham’s hand off her arm, Ellis Baine has reached his porch. They stand watching him, all three of them, until Ellis disappears inside.

“Don’t you ever come here again,” Daddy says without looking back at Annie.

“Take it easy, John,” Abraham says.

“You understand me?”

Still Daddy won’t look at Annie.

“Asked you a question,” he says.

There’s something in the way Daddy is talking to Annie, something in the tone of his voice, the way he looked at her, squatted down at the tomatoes, that shames Annie. He’s never shamed her before, never been afraid of her black eyes or treated her like she has bygones to be sorry for. But just now, Daddy is disgusted by her, and that’s a thing she never thought he would be.

“I know you think Mama loves him,” Annie says.

Daddy swings around. He doesn’t mean to, surely doesn’t mean to, but he reaches out with one hand and strikes Annie across the face. It’s like a whip cracking down on her cheek. The sting of it shoots up into her eye and down into her lower jaw. Abraham grabs at her again, yanks her backward, putting himself between her and Daddy, and presses one of his hands in the center of Daddy’s chest.

The most frightening thing happens next. For the first time, Daddy doesn’t know what to do. He always knows what to do. He knows how to tighten the faucet so it doesn’t drip all night long and drive Grandma into a rage. He knows how to take a screwdriver to the top hinge so the bathroom door won’t stick and just when to head inside to avoid the rain. But bending to pick up the hat that flew off his head, dropping to his knees instead of standing, Daddy doesn’t know what to do next.

“She didn’t love him,” Annie says, stepping from behind Abraham and not covering over the sting on her cheek with the palm of her hand even though she wants to. It would be like reminding Daddy he drank too much whiskey and wasn’t there at the well when they found Mrs. Baine.

“Regret,” Annie says. “That’s what he said. Ellis Baine said it’s not love Mama’s feeling; it’s regret. What’s she regretting, Daddy?”

“Ah, Jesus, Annie,” Daddy says. “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

Annie stands in front of Daddy, not saying anything more. He’s kneeling on the ground, sitting back on his thighs. He’s catching his breath, that’s what Grandma would say. Sometimes a person needs to catch his breath. Annie takes Daddy’s hat from his hand and is brushing the dirt from its brim when a movement of some kind makes her lift her eyes. It’s Ellis Baine, and he’s coming this way again.

He’s walking different than before. He’s taking long steps, his heavy boots giving the soft turned-over ground a beating. He’s looking straight ahead, not quite at Annie, not quite at Daddy, but instead at Abraham Pace. And Ellis Baine is carrying something in one hand. It hangs at his side, down along one leg. He’s carrying a shotgun.

ABRAHAM MUST HAVE seen Ellis Baine coming before Annie did. He could have shouted out, could have warned them, but he said nothing. Instead, he is waving a hand in Annie’s direction. Miss Watson is walking toward the fence, and Abraham is waving at her, wants her to get away.

“What is it, Abe?” Miss Watson calls out. She hoists the hem of her skirt and teeters on the heels of her fine dress shoes. She is supposed to be shopping for something new and something blue with Mama and Grandma. “What’s wrong? You were meant to meet me in town.”

Turning her eyes back to Ellis Baine, Annie reaches down and touches Daddy on the shoulder so he’ll look too. And then Annie is stumbling again and falling and being shoved toward the fence. Her hands and knees hit the ground. She skids, falling flat, rocks cutting into the side of her face. She scrambles forward, not quite on hands and knees, not quite sliding on her belly. Daddy keeps pushing at her from behind.

“Go on back down to the house,” Abraham shouts out again.

“Come on with me, Abe,” Miss Watson says. She must not see the gun hanging at Ellis’s side, and she’ll not see Annie pressed up against the fence. “You promised you’d meet me.”

“Only one thing I want,” Ellis says.

Annie reaches the fence, grabs at it, her fingers slipping between the flat rocks like they did when she was a girl, except now she’s on the wrong side. She pushes against it, turns to face Ellis. Daddy stands between her and Ellis Baine. Miss Watson has gone silent, which must mean she understands now what is happening.

“Tell me what hand you had in it,” Ellis says, the shotgun still hanging at his side. He’s talking to Abraham. “Tell me what hand you had.”

“Good God,” Abraham says. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Ellis,” Daddy says, nearly stumbling over Annie for standing so close, “ain’t no need to scare these women. Put that thing away.”

“Then get on,” Ellis says. “Tell me. And you can start with the cards.”

Abraham looks to Daddy, but Daddy’s eyes are on that gun hanging from Ellis Baine’s hand.

“Better do as the man asks,” Daddy says.

“Be happy to, John,” Abraham says. “But I’m not sure what in God’s creation he’s talking about.”

“You took a deck of cards from the girl,” Ellis says, dipping his head toward Annie. “Said they was yours. Where’d they come from?”

“Good Lord, I don’t know.” Abraham smells of the spicy cologne he sometimes wears when he comes to the house for Sunday supper, and his shirt is buttoned up under his chin and tucked into his belted pants and he wears a tan jacket. He’s dressed to go to town, where he was meaning to meet Miss Watson just like she said. He glances back at her. She must still be standing on the other side of the fence behind Daddy. “Just an old deck of cards. Have no idea where they come from.”

“Not just an old deck,” Ellis says. “You took them off Dale Crowley.”

“Let’s send the girls on home, Ellis,” Daddy says. “Then we’ll talk this through.”

“How’d you come to have those cards, Abe? Last time I’m asking.”

“Tell me what you want me to say, and I’ll say it. Just let these girls go on.”

“Tell me you took them off Dale Crowley the day he disappeared.”

“What’s he talking about, Abe?” It’s Miss Watson. From the sound of her voice, closer now than it was before, Miss Watson has squatted behind the fence. She must be peeking over like Annie did as a little girl.

“The day Dale Crowley disappeared, Joseph Carl give him a deck of playing cards,” Ellis says. “He told me that. Told the sheriff the same. And now they somehow end up with Abe. Seems to me, you having those cards means you know something about what really happened to Dale Crowley.”

“I remember,” Daddy says, shuffling his feet and trapping Annie against the rocks. “Joseph Carl, he said he gave a deck to Dale that day. Never did find them on the boy though. Figured they washed away. Probably, they were just lost.”

“Didn’t wash away,” Ellis says. He raises the gun’s barrel and points it at Abraham. “Found them sitting in the middle of your kitchen table, John. Joseph Carl had that deck since we was boys. No mistaking that deck belonged to Joseph Carl. Started off thinking it was you, John, had some sort of hand in all this. Turns out,” Ellis says, jabbing the gun in Abraham’s direction, “Abe, here, has had them cards all these years.”

“I don’t get why we’re talking about this,” Abraham says, his eyes jumping from Ellis to Daddy to Miss Watson. “Christ, so I have a favorite deck. Why you bringing up Joseph Carl after all this time?”

“Bringing it up because you fellows hung that boy for something it’s looking like you did.”

“Come on, now,” Daddy says. “Put the gun down. Too many years have passed to be talking like this.”

“Too many for you maybe,” Ellis says. “Not too many for me.”

“You know Joseph Carl confessed,” Daddy says. “Told us where Dale would be found. How do you figure Abraham had any part in that?”

“Never heard Joseph Carl say any such thing,” Ellis says. With his thumb, he slides the safety off. He readies his finger on the trigger. “You hear him say it, Abe?”

Ellis squints through one eye to get a better look down the barrel of his gun. Daddy’s boots press up next to Annie. The black toes are covered with dust where he’s kicked up the fine, dry dirt, and one lace hangs loose.

“Dale didn’t have no cards when I seen him.” It’s Abraham’s voice. He spits out the first few words, but as he continues to talk, he slows and speaks not so loudly, because Ellis Baine has lowered his gun. “Best I can remember, he didn’t have no cards.”

“You seen the boy that day?” Ellis asks.

“He was with Juna and me. But it was early in the day. Had to be before Joseph Carl come along because the boy was with us. Juna, she was fine.” Abraham holds his hands out to the side. “I swear, Ellis. Juna and I, we had our place. We went there that day. Told the boy to wait for us.” And then, because Juna Crowley is Annie’s mama and Abraham thinks Annie will care most, he looks to her. “I loved her. Loved your Aunt Juna. Thought she’d be my wife one day. She didn’t want nobody knowing what we was up to. Most especially her daddy. She said he’d put an end to it right quick. We told the boy to wait. It was shady and nice there by the river. Told the boy to wait and mind his business. Don’t remember no deck of playing cards.”

Abraham has always talked about loving Aunt Juna and that his was the face she saw down in the well. Annie shifts on her knees, braces her hands on the ground. She wants to stand so she and Daddy can go home. She never knew Dale Crowley or Joseph Carl or any of these people, but now she knows Abraham is her real father. She wants Daddy to take her home and she’ll pour iced tea and Mama will start supper soon, probably something that won’t need to go in the oven because it’ll heat up the house and it’s so darn hot outside as it is. She wants to stand, tries to stand, but Daddy is pinning her against the rocks. The jagged edges bite into her right shoulder and knee. She looks up to say something, and she sees it. The gun is pointed at her now. Ellis Baine is staring down, and the slender tip is pointed at Annie.

They must all know. Daddy, Mama, and Grandma too. Once Annie started to sprout, they must have realized Abraham was her father. She should have seen it long before now. And it’s not just the height. Annie has Abraham’s square face too. Caroline has a delicate chin like Mama, and both have a face shaped much like the hearts Caroline is all the time drawing on her notebooks. More and more, Mama will cup Annie’s face on a Sunday morning when she’s dressed for church or when she’s fresh out of the tub and wrapped up in a towel, her hair still damp. She’ll rest a hand on Annie’s face and say striking, just striking. They must all know, Abraham included, that Abraham is Annie’s daddy.

“That ain’t all,” Ellis says again, still looking at Annie, directly into her black eyes. “You go on and tell.”

“I swear to God, Ellis,” Abraham says, dropping his head and shaking it side to side. “I don’t know nothing else. Juna sent me on my way soon as we was done. She didn’t like no one seeing us coming and going together. She and the boy, they was going back to work. Next thing I know, Abigail come to tell me Dale was gone and Juna’d been hurt. I swear to God, that’s all I know.”

“Christ in heaven, Ellis.” It’s Daddy. “Turn that thing away.”

Annie hugs her knees, the rocks still cutting into her shoulder and the back of her head.

Next, it’s Abraham. “Ellis, please. She ain’t got nothing to do with this.”

“Then you better tell right about now.” Ellis squeezes that one eye closed again. The one that is open does not move. It’s set on Annie. No matter which way Daddy moves or how closely he stands over Annie, that eye does not move.

It’s hard seeing through the tears. They pool in Annie’s eyes, spill onto her cheeks. They turn Ellis Baine into little more than a smear, and Abraham the same. Her nose runs, and her hair sticks to her neck and the sides of her face. She dips her head and swipes her eyes with the back of one hand. Off to the right, Abraham is sliding one foot toward Ellis and holding both hands out to the side as if to prove he doesn’t have any gun of his own.

“What else do you want to know, Ellis?” Abraham says. “Anything. I’ll tell you anything.”

Ellis looks down on Annie again, the gun still pointed at her. “You let them bury him like he was a crazy man. Let them bury him where he’d never find a moment’s rest.”

Annie shakes her head, though she knows Ellis isn’t talking to her.

“That’s not so,” Daddy says, his arms stretched out to the side to better protect Annie. “That ain’t what happened, Ellis. Joseph Carl ain’t buried there.”

Ellis pulls away from the gun, but that single eye and the barrel are still aimed at Annie.

“He’s buried out back of your house,” Daddy says, shuffling to the right and nearly tripping over Annie. “We did it. A handful of us. Best I remember, we tied together a few logs and that’s what’s buried there in town. Ain’t Joseph Carl. We waited a time and then buried him out back. Your mama, she fashioned a marker of sorts, I think. We tried to do right by the boy,” Daddy says. “Didn’t want to believe he done those things. Don’t really guess I ever did much believe it. Have always kept my own girls close, figuring there was someone still out there.”

Daddy’s always said if it looks like a Baine, choose a different path. Maybe he’s always thought another one of the Baines left Uncle Dale for dead.

Ellis Baine is still staring at Annie through that one eye, and the gun is still lifted in his hands, but the barrel has started to dip toward the ground. To the right, Abraham has slid a few steps closer to Ellis. As Daddy starts to talk again, Abraham slips his right hand behind him and up under his jacket.

“You let me know if you can’t find it,” Daddy says, inching ever so slowly to the right. “Guess I figured your mama would have told you about it, else I would have told you long before now.”

Abraham grabs hold of something and slips it from under his jacket. It’s silver and catches the sunlight. Still holding it in his hand, whatever it is, Abraham lets it hang down alongside his leg and Annie can no longer see it. But she knows enough. Even though Daddy has never been much for guns and rifles, Annie knows enough.

“I’ve a pretty good memory,” Daddy is saying. “Could help you track it down. It’s just out back of your house.”

“You still ain’t explained how you came to have those cards, Abe,” Ellis says, lifting the gun again and settling it on Annie. “Thinking there must be a reason you won’t tell.”

“Miss Watson,” Annie says. It’s almost a whisper, so maybe no one hears.

The tip of the shotgun doesn’t move, but Ellis stops squinting through that one eye and looks at Annie with both. It’s barely a movement, but it’s enough. Ellis Baine knows. Annie is remembering Abraham in the kitchen. He had tossed the cards into the air, making them spin end over end, and hollered up to Miss Watson that they’d found the cards they’d been looking for.

“They’re Miss Watson’s cards,” Annie says again.

It’s louder than most anything Annie has ever heard. Louder than the backfire from the old truck Daddy once drove. Louder than the shed door when the wind catches it and slams it shut. Before the echo of it has faded, Daddy is on top of her, his body forcing her flat on the ground. The rock fence is beside her, though she can no longer feel its sharp edges. One cheek is pressed into the dirt, the other buried beneath Daddy’s chest. His heart beats against her face. His chest lifts and lowers with each breath he takes, and she can’t inhale under the weight of him.

When Daddy finally moves, he scrambles to his knees, gathers Annie up, and drops her over the fence. He yells something at her. She knows because his mouth moves, but his voice is muffled, his words unclear. He presses one hand flat, which means to stay put, stay there on the ground. Abigail Watson is there next to Annie. She huddles on the ground, her hands over her head. Abraham Pace appears next, still holding the handgun. He does the same as Daddy, though his voice is a bit sharper.

“Stay put,” he says. “Everything’ll be fine. Stay put.”

ANNIE PUSHES UP to her knees, sits back on her heels, and rests there, her head lowered, her hands pressed to the ground. Her hind end hurts from her being dropped over the fence, and the palm of each hand burns. Miss Watson stands.

“Abigail?” Abraham says. His voice sounds as if coming from far away.

“I guess I’d forgotten,” Miss Watson says. She looks down on Annie when she says it.

Annie starts to stand, but Daddy appears above her and tells her to stay put again. Slowly, she shifts herself around so she’s sitting on her hind end, even though it aches. She pulls her skirt over her knees and wraps her arms around her legs.

Daddy and Abraham are moving about on the other side of the fence, and Miss Watson is watching them. She steps back, nearly tripping, when Daddy jumps over the fence. He leans into Annie.

“You stay here with Abraham,” he says. “Stay put.”

Then Daddy runs down the hill, through the lavender, not bothering to be careful of the slender stems.

“What is it you done, Abigail?” Abraham says. He’s standing across from Miss Watson.

Still hugging her knees, Annie looks up at them from her place on the ground. Daddy said to stay put. He doesn’t want her seeing what’s on the Baines’ side of the fence.

“He was peeking, Abey,” Miss Watson says. “From up there in a tree. I climbed alongside him, and Dale, he was peeking. I saw you, you and Juna. He said he done it all the time. All the time peeking on you.”

Abraham glances over his shoulder, closes his eyes, and his chest lifts up and out as he takes a deep breath.

“You was there?” Abraham says. “You was there near the river?”

Miss Watson turns to Annie again. “Sarah’s the one told me where to find Dale. Your mama, she’s the one. Said he was off with Juna. I’d been there to that spot with Dale before but never to peek. I never knew he peeked like that.”

Abraham stares down at his hands, and like Daddy after he slapped Annie, he looks as if he doesn’t know what to do next.

“What did you do to Dale?” Annie says because Abraham won’t ask. Annie never knew her Uncle Dale. He had been beaten and left for dead by Joseph Carl Baine. That part of the legend never much got talked about.

“He gave me those cards for safekeeping so he could climb on out a bit farther for a better look. Said a fellow gave him those cards and he wanted to keep them nice. He was laughing at Abey.” Miss Watson squats before Annie and wraps her arms around her knees, same as Annie. “He said for me to be real quiet, and if the water was low enough and slow enough, we’d hear Abey grunting and such. He was laughing at Abe.”

Abraham had been wrong about the time Joseph Carl passed through that day. He’d already come and gone before Abraham ever met up with Juna. Joseph Carl had given those cards to Dale and then gone on his way, and that was all. He didn’t hurt anyone or leave anyone for dead. Maybe it’s because of the know-how, or maybe it’s because there’s only one thing that could come next, but Annie knows what Miss Watson will say.

“I pushed him so he’d stop his laughing,” Miss Watson whispers to Annie. “I didn’t think about it being so far of a drop.”

Abraham is staring at Miss Watson. “You pushed the boy.”

“Juna’s the one said I couldn’t tell what I’d done,” Miss Watson says and stands to face Abraham again. “She found Dale and me too. Said Dale was dead and there wasn’t nothing we could do. Said her daddy would send you away, Abey, maybe kill you, and he’d put Juna out of the house because he’d think it was your fault and hers. She said nothing was more important than a man’s son and he’d see to it you’d be punished, her too. She told me to go on back to her house and ask after Dale again. She said I’d lose you if I told.”

“But Joseph Carl,” Abraham said, looking over his shoulder again. Ellis Baine is dead, and Abraham keeps looking because he’s the one who killed him. “He’s the reason we found Dale. He told Sheriff Irlene. He told her himself.”

Abraham takes his hat off and runs the brim through his fingers, working it around in a circle. He’s thinking, remembering.

“Wasn’t Joseph Carl who told,” he finally says. “Was you. You and your grandma, you took Joseph Carl his meals while he was locked up.”

Miss Watson nods. “I felt bad thinking about Dale out there in that river all alone. I couldn’t tell anyone what I done, so I said Joseph Carl told me where we’d find Dale. I told Sheriff Irlene that. Told Grandma and Papa too. Told them all that when I took Joseph Carl his tray, he confessed to me.”

Down at the house, the sheriff’s car pulls up the drive and two doors fly open. Daddy and Sheriff Fulkerson come running up the hill toward Annie.

“Juna made it all up,” Abraham says. “She told everyone Joseph Carl done all those things so no one would know you were mine.” He’s looking at Annie as he says it. She nods. “Wasn’t you Juna didn’t want,” he says. “You understand that? Was me she didn’t want.”