Love and Lament Page 24

  NINE YEARS PASSED.

  It was strange how life could move so fast and yet be unchanging in the things that mattered. Mary Bet remained an unmarried clerk at the Haw County Courthouse. She went out on a couple of raids—to apprehend a drunken brawler for stealing a wagon full of illegal whiskey that he claimed he was bringing to the authorities, and a flimflammer from South Carolina who was selling bogus burial insurance to poor folks in several counties. But mostly she stayed at the courthouse, doing a job she had been at nearly as long as anyone could remember.

  She made friends, went to their weddings, saw them have babies, attended church picnics and baptisms, laughed over jokes and stories, and went out to Love’s Creek once a month to decorate the graves. It seemed as though she arrived overnight from being a girl to a middle-aged woman. The years rushed by as if they were in a hurry, and the world with them. And she was caught up in the whirlwind of time whether she intended to be or not, and the past was swirled together with the present and the future like a dust devil, curling around and around and around.

  There were fewer and fewer trips to Hartsoe City, though Clara kept her up on the news: Dr. Slocum bought the first automobile in town, a little two-door runabout with a fold-back cloth top. Then Robert Gray Jr. bought a similar but sportier-looking roadster, and they would chug together up the Raleigh Road, racing by the time they got past the post office. After Ila died, Robert Gray Jr. became a lawyer like his daddy and married a rich widow from Charlotte. Sometimes they came to Williamsboro, and when Mary Bet saw one of them about town her heart would skip a beat, as she remembered her sister and her own crush on him when he was calling on Ila.

  Amanda and Mr. Hennesey had a falling out, then patched things up and were married, and when they moved out it took Mrs. Gooch two weeks to find suitable replacements. “You’d think they could’ve had a little more consideration,” she told Mary Bet the night before the wedding, though they’d announced their plans three months ahead. The new boarders were sisters, both schoolteachers, and they pretty much kept to themselves. But it didn’t bother Mary Bet, because she had plenty of friends around town.

  She wondered if she would ever find romantic love. Or was the love of her friends not better, because it was a love that did not require as much constant attention, not a demanding love the way an animal must be tended several times a day, or the way the garden must be watered and weeded. The love of friends did not tear at you the way the love of family did—you could snip away a friend like a brown leaf on a plant and go on with your life, because water was not as thick as blood, and she needed no more blood than what was in her own veins. Water should be enough—was it not the stuff of life?

  It had been ten years since she and Cattie had taken Cicero up to Morganton, an entire decade of living on her own. She no longer thought of her father with self-reproach, no longer accused herself of abandoning him. Her semiannual visits to the state hospital had become a dutiful ritual, giving her neither pain nor pleasure, for her father seemed to have drifted away, his light dimming with each passing year. For a while she wondered if it was the medication that was causing his steady decline. But the doctors had assured her what they used was minimal, and she had no choice but to believe them. She wrote him a letter a week, but because she no longer (after the first year) heard back it was like writing to herself, reminding herself of the events of the previous seven days. She had no thought now of rescuing him—where would they live? How could she take care of him? And what if he should have another, worse episode? There had been enough tragedy in her life.

  She was twenty-nine. Almost in the fourth decade of her life, and she sometimes felt embarrassed for living so long unmarried. No, that was not it. Just for living so long. Her friends loved her, but she sometimes felt as if she could relieve their anxiety by finding a mate. On the other hand, was it not too late for that? Almost, almost.

  CHAPTER 20

  1916

  THERE WERE MEN who came through the courthouse that Mary Bet found attractive, but she thought they may have sensed that in her thirtieth year she was a little too judgmental and hard to please and decided she wasn’t worth the bother. She never flirted with anybody, because she believed in treating everyone with the same kindness and respect. If God intended her to marry, then he would work it out in his own way … although, there was the possibility that he might intend for her to take some kind of action. In the meantime, there was plenty to occupy her attention. One day Sheriff Teague asked if she was interested in going out with him and a deputy on a raid. She looked up from her typewriter and pushed her glasses back up her nose. “What kind of raid?” she asked.

  “On a still.”

  “An illegal still?”

  “That’s the only kind that operates in Haw County,” he said. He stood leaning over her desk like a drawn bow, his tall, lean stature and dark eyes giving him a hungry look. His jacket hung open and his black-stock tie matched his long mustache in dishevelment. But he was hardworking and personable and Mary Bet thought that if Hooper Teague wasn’t her cousin she might be interested in him. In fact, if he wasn’t Cattie Jordan’s son, she might … even though his ears were a little big for his face. There was a woman down in Possum Creek, a rich farmer’s daughter, he was known to court from time to time, but they weren’t engaged that Mary Bet had heard.

  “I’ll have to see to finishing this pile of papers,” she said.

  “You can see to that later, I need you to come with Leon and me.”

  “Is it dangerous?” she asked, rising and putting on her jacket and black felt hat.

  “Naw, shouldn’t be too bad. These aren’t any murderers—that I know of. They might be a little nimble, and that’s why I want you with us.”

  Mary Bet shook her head, wondering how she could possibly be of help and wondering, too, if her cousin was just having fun educating her in the ways of Haw County law enforcement. They loaded onto the sheriff’s buckboard, which was powered by an enormous old chestnut named Caesar, then went jouncing along, the varnished strips of wood at their feet creaking like springs. Mary Bet covered her nose and mouth with a handkerchief against the summer dust, but the stirred air felt good on her skin.

  They stopped just north of town and picked up Leon Thomas, a young teacher Hooper deputized from time to time in addition to his regular township deputies. He was heavyset and jowly and quite a bit shorter than Hooper. His hair was light and bristly and cropped so close to his skull that he looked something like a criminal, Mary Bet thought. She didn’t much care for sitting beside him, so she only nodded politely when he jabbed a hand up in greeting. Only a country bumpkin would do that to a lady. He was kind enough to go around to the other side and get in next to Hooper, and then they were off again.

  For the next mile or two the men talked about people they knew in common and cases they’d worked together. There was a recent brawl down in Possum Creek between a vagrant and a farmer who’d hired him to put up and paint a fence. Mary Bet didn’t like the story because it reminded her of Shackleford Davies, the murderer, and because Possum Creek was where Hooper’s lady friend lived and it seemed as if he enjoyed just saying the name of the village. It was a silly name for a village—she’d never heard of anybody from there, except rich farmers and vagrants. Then they started talking about the pig rustler out along the county line to the east. Leon would glance over at Mary Bet occasionally. Why, she couldn’t imagine, unless it was to include her in a conversation that she could add nothing to, or to impress her with how smart they’d been in handling the pig thief.

  They turned off on the White Chapel Road and rocked along under the dappled shade of oaks and hickories, past farms with white clapboard houses set back amid groves of trees, the smells of honeysuckle and ripening corn fixed in the air, and Mary Bet half listened to the men and wondered if the world consisted of young women like herself being carried along by strong men and horses and some compelling mission, all flowing as inevitably as a river. It was not a
bad feeling exactly—she was in fact comforted by the men’s voices and their heavy, tobacco odor—yet the place they were going, outside of her experience, filled her with a childish fear that she tried to ignore. Nothing terrible could happen, though she had seen her cousin’s holstered revolver beneath the hem of his jacket.

  Her limbs, at times her entire body, trembled with anticipation, and to calm herself she thought of O’Nora. O’Nora would’ve enjoyed this, would’ve considered it an adventure and a chance to see how things were done. Mary Bet thought she had grown less afraid over the years, but it seemed the older you got the more you encountered things to fear, replacing the things of the past that had once seemed so fearful with new things you’d never imagined undertaking before.

  Before she had time to fully consider this, the buckboard was turning off onto a narrow lane with deep ruts and a center stripe of weeds that grew higher the farther they traveled. In another mile they turned again, down a cart path, the horse picking its slow way among holes and embedded rocks, and then again they turned and went on and on and on, until the path was so overgrown that the limbs of scrub trees thocked against the wheel spokes and scraped the sides of the buckboard as though intent on impeding its further progress. Mary Bet was continually holding up her hands to keep from getting smacked in the face. Finally they stopped.

  “We lost?” Leon asked.

  “No,” Hooper replied. “I reckon we can walk from here.”

  “Shall I stay with the buggy?” Mary Bet suggested.

  “Not unless you want to. I could use you for a forward man.” He smiled so that the shoulders of his long mustache lifted, but Mary Bet was not especially amused. She gathered her skirts against her legs and reached a bare hand out to her cousin and let him help her down. Her hat went crooked over her face as she landed. Hooper reached back under the seat and pulled out an ax, then went over and pushed through a screen of shrubs and trees lining the path. He studied the ground. “Yep,” he said quietly. “Here’s the trail. I was through here six days ago on a tip. Found five barrels of mash. With the air cool as it’s been, I don’t reckon they were ready to whiskeyfy till now. Cap was soft as a baby’s bottom.”

  Leon guffawed, and Hooper turned abruptly and shushed him. “We got to be quiet now. Don’t even break a stick. It’s a mile or so in, but they might already know we’re here. When we get closer I’ll send Mary Bet in to say she’s been out picking herbs and got lost. Then Leon, you’ll go around behind in case anybody tries to run.”

  “How am I gonna stop ’em?” Leon asked. He looked from the sheriff to Mary Bet, as though he’d be happy for an answer from either of them, and it was the first time she realized he was as green as she in still busting. But he didn’t look nervous or scared—he just stood there, his stocky legs and torso as solid as a bull, fanning his sweating face with his slouch hat. She didn’t mind the country way he had of speaking, and now that she could see him close up, his gray-green eyes sharp and focused, she didn’t think he was all that bad-looking either, even if he was a little chunky.

  “Just tell them to stop,” Hooper said.

  “What kind of herbs?” Mary Bet wanted to know. She watched as Leon took a pinch of snuff from a tin and packed it under his lower lip.

  Hooper shook his head. “Any kind you can think of.”

  “What if they have guns?” she asked.

  “They won’t shoot us. It’s just old Strickland Sugg and some of his lesser kin.”

  “Is Harlan Junior with ‘em, you reckon?” Leon asked.

  “Why, is he a friend of yours?”

  “We went squirrel shooting a week ago. He knows every single creek and cranny and holler in the north part of the county. But I’ve heard old Sugg’s liable to be unpredictable.”

  Hooper shook his head. “I’m not overly concerned. They’re just trying to beat the revenue.” He glanced thoughtfully at Leon as though reconsidering. “Of course, it is against the law.”

  “Shoot, Hooper,” Leon said. “You got the reputation of being so dry you have to drink water just to spit.” He then expectorated around clenched teeth, the brown gob instantly coating a little purple wildflower, and Mary Bet decided he had poor manners in front of a lady.

  It was impossible to walk in the forest without snapping twigs underfoot, nor without snagging one’s dress on unseen briars and nettles. Every so often she stooped to pick a flower or little plant, putting the posy in her sweater pocket so that she could prove she’d been out gathering herbs. Her heart was beginning to thump quicker and louder and higher in her chest, though she tried to be brave and ignore it. The next time Hooper suggested she go out on a raid, she would simply say she was too busy, or she wasn’t feeling well—it was okay to lie like that when you had nothing to gain. She brushed the loose hair back from her brow and walked on, pretending to be O’Nora, pulling her shoulders up, swinging her arms along, eager to meet these strange backwoods bootleggers and to see their hive of illicit, foul-smelling depravity.

  After a while Hooper held his hand up, and they stopped. The trickling of a nearby creek sounded through the woods, and Mary Bet could smell wood smoke and a faint yeasty odor. Hooper leaned down to whisper to Mary Bet. “You go on ahead. Ask for directions to the road. We’ll be right along. Don’t spook if you hear a shot. It’ll just be a lookout warning the cookers.”

  Mary Bet headed forward through the forest, which seemed darker now. Clouds had obscured what little sun had found its way through the thick trees. She forced herself to take one step after another, looking back every few seconds to make sure Hooper wasn’t calling her off. Leon had already disappeared. I won’t fail you, she told herself, I won’t fail you. Even if it was just a test of her nerves, she wouldn’t let her boss down. I won’t fail you, she thought, and the image of O’Nora’s red-cheeked face came so clearly to mind she almost called out. “I won’t fail you either,” she whispered, and her heartbeat steadied itself and she found that she could breathe. She walked on toward the gathering sound of voices and didn’t look back.

  A little ways on she stopped behind the thick ridgy trunk of a chestnut tree. The voices had gone suddenly quiet, and in the backwash of silence she could hear the creek again, louder and more urgent. But her heart was resolved and she moved out from behind the tree. A bugle blared out three strangulated notes like a startled goose, followed by the barking of dogs. She stopped and peered through the tangled spring growth of creeper and sapling, between the gray uprights of trees unbranching until they were clear of some preordained growth that only pertained here in the primitive deep of the woods. The dogs quit barking, as if they’d been hushed, and though she kept shifting her head like a deer to see forward, the tree-on-tree weave obscured her view.

  She decided they knew of her presence and that it was best to continue on—she was lost and needed to find people. A few steps farther she saw a black hairlike line at her feet and thought how odd to find a spiderweb of such color. Bending down, she saw that it was a long piece of thread running between two trees—how strange these people must be, how superstitious, she thought, stepping over the thread and reminding herself to ask them about it. She thought she would not be surprised or scared by anything now—a bear even, or a wild boar.

  At the limit of her sight a man was standing beside a tree. Or what looked like a man. She came on forward now, more sure of herself and trusting that the sheriff was somewhere close behind. The man wore stained nankeen trousers and a long brown canvas jacket; his hat shadowed his face, and he leaned on a carved stick, the handle at waist level. As she drew closer he lifted his eyes to glance at her, and she saw that one eye was dead. He scanned with great care the woods behind her as though reading and rereading a passage for some important line.

  “Hallo,” she said, coming forward.

  He nodded, his stringy beard dipping a mere inch. “Who’s with you?” he asked. His voice was low and gravelly, not unfriendly, just cautiously threatening; he was perhaps seventy, or a littl
e older, around her father’s age, and she suddenly felt sorry for him and guilty for pretending to be other than the law. She imagined he was posted here because he was too old or incompetent to do the real work.

  “I’m lost,” she said, for she could not bring herself to say she was alone. “I was out looking for herbs to make tea with.” She pulled the plants from her pocket and held them out in her palm. “Do you know which way the road is from here?”

  “What was you looking for, precisely?” Again his good eye only flickered across her, taking her in and then swiftly moving on to the woods behind. But it seemed that the dead eye continued to hold her.

  “I mostly was after cohosh. You don’t know where any is, do you?”

  “How’d you get in here, if you cain’t get out?” His teeth were stained and one of the two front ones was twisted so that the side was forward.

  She laughed in a limp way. “I walked from the road. I guess I’m not much good with directions.”

  “You’re not from around here. Where’re you from?”

  “From over in Williamsboro,” she said. “Well, I’m really from Hartsoe City.”

  “What’s your name?”

  She hesitated. “Mary Bet Hartsoe. You might’ve heard of my people.” She looked him in the eye, and then, as though another voice were taking possession of hers, for she’d never asked a man to introduce himself, she said, “What’s your name?”

  “Otis Sugg,” he said. A breeze carried the smell of cooking mash, heavier now, and Otis appraised her as though for a sign of comprehension. And because she could think of nothing more to say, Mary Bet finally lost her nerve and looked back. She thought of Lot’s wife losing her faith and paying with her life. As she turned back around, she cried out, because she saw that Otis Sugg had pulled a pistol from his belt. He lifted it in the air and fired. Then he said, “Your friend’s a-comin’ yonder. I’s just lettin’ him know we was here.”