AUGUST 1972
Jesse said we should leave Dickie alone for a while, but I thought that was cruel—that he needed friends. So the next day I went to Blake’s and bought candy and soda and took it to his house. It was overcast and he was in the garage looking through an old trunk of his father’s stuff, pulling out letters and pictures.
“Funny how a life winds up just stuff in a box,” Dickie said. He wasn’t crying or anything but he wasn’t himself.
“Your dad was more than his stuff,” I said. “More than those medals the Army gave him.”
“Maybe.” He found a UFO magazine and flipped through it. “Let’s go do something else.”
We rode our bikes to my house and climbed the hill. The gray sky was perfect for looking for UFOs. It was hot, and everyone knows UFOs hover when it’s hot and Bigfoot comes out.
Dickie and I walked under low-hanging clouds on the hill as if this were the exact spot aliens would congregate. The fire siren sounded in the valley and Ford trucks raced down the dirt road, sending up a plume of dust. Dickie cursed as a thin line of smoke rose from the west end of town.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“I might have left the stove on. My mama said to make sure I turned it off, but now I can’t remember. I better go check.”
I thought about going with him, but I was sure his house was fine, and Jesse’s place was just over the hill. She and I were in full preparation mode, trying to come up with a way to care for Daisy Grace after school started, and we could use the time to plan.
“I’ll see you later,” I said, watching as he ran down the hill.
I took the back route through the property that connected with my grandmother’s land. It was a tangled path, and other than fences, there was no clear direction that would get you to the road. My father knew the trails as well as anyone, and I usually followed him when we came here—but we hadn’t taken any long walks over the summer.
I remembered a briar patch and skirted that, making my way deeper into the woods. Winded, I leaned against a dead tree and realized I was lost. If I went the right direction, I could retreat to our house or reach the road, but I could also go in the opposite direction and walk for miles. I looked for the sun, but the clouds were thick. My breath came in short bursts and I noticed a high-pitched whine that seemed to get louder as I walked to the other side of the dead tree. I froze, staring at the biggest hornets’ nest I had ever seen. It was huge at the top and tapered to a point at the end.
Like a line drive off the bat of some kid too big for Little League, a hornet flew straight at me and stuck its stinger between my eyes. I yelped and if my camera hadn’t come with a nylon strap, I would have left it there. I’ve thought many times how the day would have turned out differently if I had dropped that camera.
I turned and flew down the hill, which, I learned, was not faster than a hornet can fly. I swatted wildly to fend them off, running from the path into virgin territory. My brother had told me years earlier about the Native Americans who had found this area rich for hunting—and he had the arrowheads to prove it.
Two stings on the neck later, I fell and rolled down the hill, scratching my face and arms and coming to rest on a creek bank. I didn’t see bones protruding, so I brushed myself off and hurried past the trickling water.
Something moved in the underbrush and I thought of all the menacing animals—copperheads and bears—not to mention the unexplainable. My camera dangled in front of me and I cradled it, thinking my flash might fend off a threat, like my mother said Jimmy Stewart did in Rear Window. When I heard a car pass a hundred yards away and smelled the dust from the road, it was the happiest moment of my hiking life.
I stepped onto the rutted road as welts rose on my arms from the stings. But I was alive. I had survived the onslaught of the biggest hornets’ nest in history, and I couldn’t wait to tell my friends.
I exited the woods about a half mile from Jesse’s house, so I headed that way, scratching and trying to pull stingers from my forehead and neck, which made the pain worse. Clouds roiled, releasing the first spitting of rain.
There were two entrances to the Blackwood farm. One gate accessed the lower fields and led to the barn. The upper entrance led straight to the brick house on the hill, and this was what I was passing when I saw someone walking through the field by the house. I stepped toward the gate, next to the mailbox, and stood on the berm of the road.
The Blackwood driveway was empty. An aged Massey Ferguson tractor sat by the barn along with equipment for cutting, tilling, and raking. I glanced at the field and realized it wasn’t one person but two, one leading the other.
Raindrops kissed the earth in big, splotchy drops and I ducked through the fence, ignoring the No Trespassing signs. In spite of all the stories of Blackwood, I figured someone in that house would have pity on me and rescue me from the oncoming flood.
I ran waving up the graveled drive. Then I noticed the second person had long, blonde hair, and before the rain intensified, I recognized Jesse being pulled by Gentry Blackwood.
I ran for the house, my feet crunching gravel, and put my camera under my shirt to protect it from the rain. My biggest concern now was Jesse. Gentry dragged her through the back door just as I came to the house, and lightning struck on the hill behind me with thunder crashing instantly. I ducked under the eave of the house to get dry and heard screaming inside. I couldn’t imagine what was happening—and then I could. And the prospect made me sick.
What should I do? If I tried to stop him, Gentry would pummel me. I couldn’t just stand there.
But I did.
I listened to Jesse scream and closed my eyes and wished I were somewhere else. I wished I’d never come to Dogwood.
I wiped the rain and sweat from my face and noticed a paint-blotched stepladder on the ground. I put it under a window and climbed. I was near the top when I got my head over the ledge and peered into the room. There was a bed directly under the window. Gentry struggled to hold Jesse down. I took one more rung of the ladder and it shifted, but I held on to the ledge.
Gentry had ripped Jesse’s shirt and her bra was exposed—I didn’t even know she wore one. He grabbed at her shorts. I noticed marks of some sort on Jesse’s stomach. Jesse kicked and clawed and screamed, squirming back on the bed, but Gentry was stronger. He pinned her legs with his body and held her arms, yelling for her to lie still.
There are moments in life when the world slows or stops altogether, and I swear if I had turned around right then, I would have been able to count the billions of raindrops one by one. I smelled the fresh ozone and water and dirt, heaven and earth mixing together, and wished I were bigger and stronger and had more courage.
Unable to think of anything else to do, I lifted my camera and held it up to the window. I clicked the shutter and the flash blazed. The Polaroid whirred as the photo spat from it. I grabbed the picture and looked into the room and met the eyes of Jesse’s attacker.
Gentry threw Jesse’s legs away and gritted his teeth. “I’m going to kill you!”
He ran to the bedroom door, but I scrambled off the ladder and shoved the picture in my pocket. I sprinted past the front door, hoping Gentry would come out the back. When I reached the end of the house, a door slammed in the back and I had my chance. I raced for the barn.
The rain was coming in a torrent and lightning flashed, thunder cracking. I knew if Gentry caught me, my life was over. I made it to the barn and looked through the uneven boards at the downpour and the fog that hung between.
I climbed into a loft over the feeding trough and hid behind some hay bales in the back. Water blew through the cracks between the aged lumber, and mud daubers buzzed overhead. I didn’t want another hornet sting, but I promised myself if I got stung a thousand times, I wouldn’t make a sound.
The rain on the barn’s tin roof was deafening. My breathing settled. A month earlier I wouldn’t have been able to climb and move that quickly. I couldn’t even climb up on the edge of the road without help. Now I was running the hills and falling into creeks and getting stung with the best of them.
Grabbing the photo from my pocket, I pulled the back off, revealing the picture. You had to wait the right amount of time to let the photo finish, but I could only guess. The color was off—it was a greenish blue and the flash in the window had made the image ultrabright, but I clearly saw Jesse on the bed and Gentry over her. I had evidence. I knew that picture was important and that I had to get it into the hands of the right person before the wrong person got it.
Just then the wrong person walked into the barn. “Plumley! I know you’re in here!”
There were probably a thousand hiding places in the barn. The question was, could I remain still enough to keep him from noticing me until Jesse got away? The noise subsided a little, in the usual ebb and flow of a mountain rain, and I saw someone running across the field. It was Jesse, her hair wet and clinging. She held her ripped shirt in front of her and I whispered, “Run, Jesse.”
The cows lowed underneath me and the ladder sagged under Gentry’s weight. I sat still, my heart picking up speed.
“I swear I’ll kill you, Plumley.”
I didn’t doubt him. When I heard the ladder creak again, I prepared for a pitchfork in the heart. This was how I would die. Gentry would kill me and bury me in a shallow grave, and my parents would never find me. Water and sweat trickled into my eyes. I wanted to wipe it away but was too scared to move, too scared to breathe.
The rain slowed to a pitter-pat on the roof, and a shaft of sunlight beamed through the cracks in the wall. I glanced through the slat nearest me and saw Gentry running toward his house, yelling and crisscrossing the soggy path.
I stuffed the picture in my pocket and ran for the ladder, then the road. With each three or four steps I looked back. I didn’t stop at Jesse’s house but galloped on, drawn to something more important. Someone I had to see.
I let my bike fall at the front steps of the church and took them two at a time to the front door. It was locked. My father’s car was in the parking lot, so I was sure he was here. I checked the back entrance and found it unlocked, then ran up the right side of the sanctuary past the organ. The office was there and had access to the sanctuary, the baptistery, and the downstairs Sunday school rooms and basement. You could basically get anywhere in the church from there. The only downside was there were no windows in the room.
I burst through the door and my father looked up from his desk. He had the phone to his ear and his mouth was agape. An open mouth and slack jaw were signs of unintelligence, he always told me, but there he was. The bookshelves behind him were made of the same pine that fashioned the church walls. They were filled with commentaries and biographies. He had several versions of the Bible, his favorite being the New American Standard, but he rarely used it anymore because Old Man Blackwood said the King James was the only inspired version.
“He just got here,” my father said. “All right, I’ll call and let you know.”
He put the phone down and I broke into a sweeping, breathless explanation of what had happened. It was clearly too much for him because he held up a hand.
“Matt, slow down. Do you mind telling me why Basil Blackwood and his son were at our house just now asking where you were?”
“I know exactly why they were there. Let me show you.”
Before I could pull out the photo, he ducked into the little bathroom next to the baptistery and got a towel. “Dry yourself, you’re dripping all over.” He closed his Bible. “Your mother is beside herself. Did you go onto the Blackwood property?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’ve told you we need to respect other people’s property. That place is filled with No Trespassing signs. What would possess you to go there?”
I pulled the towel around me to stanch the dripping, my clothes still wet from the rain and sweat. I had been proud of how fast I had ridden to the church—and that I hadn’t stopped to say anything to my mother. I just took the camera from around my neck and put it in the shed and rode. I knew this was something men had to solve.
I told my father about going alone into the woods. A dipped head meant this was forbidden.
“I thought I remembered the way, but I got turned around and then there was this hornets’ nest . . .” The more I revealed, the worse it became and I decided to forgo the part about falling and rolling and the downpour.
He cut me off. “You could have been snakebit. Struck by lightning. And no one would have known.”
“I’m sorry. But listen.” I made going onto the Blackwood property sound responsible. My father’s face softened.
“I didn’t mean to trespass, but I wanted to get out of the rain and lightning. I wanted somebody to call and have you or Mom come get me.”
“You shouldn’t have been up there with that storm brewing.”
“Gentry was holding Jesse by the arm and dragging her through the field. I waved but they didn’t see me. And then I realized she was trying to get away. He got her into his house.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran under the eave. Jesse was screaming and Gentry was yelling for her to be quiet.”
I paused there. Things of a sexual nature had been forbidden territory between us, though I had heard my parents discuss having “the talk” with me and that my father needed to do it. I had heard and seen enough on the bus to junior high to curl my mother’s hair, but still nothing from him.
My father ran a hand over his mouth, his eyes looking at something not in the room. “Go on.”
“I wanted to help but I was scared. Gentry can tear kids like me apart. I climbed up a ladder and took a picture. The flash stopped him.”
“You did what?”
I reached in my pocket and pulled out the Polaroid photo and handed it to him. He looked at it and winced.
“He tore her shirt, Dad. She was scratching and clawing, but he was strong. If I hadn’t done something . . .”
“He saw you?” he said.
I nodded and told him about running to the barn, then the feeling when I saw Jesse escape. “I got on my bike and came here.”
He put the picture on his desk, facedown, and laid a hand on my shoulder. I could tell he wanted to say something, and I wanted him to, but a rumbling noise outside stopped him.
“Are you expecting somebody?” I said.
He shook his head and I saw a mixture of fear and resignation. Keys jangled and the front door opened and footsteps lumbered through the sanctuary. It was like waiting for two of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. I moved behind my dad’s desk and stuffed the picture in my pocket.
The office door flew open and Basil and Gentry Blackwood burst inside.
“Can I help you, Basil?” my father said.
“Is that him?” the man said to his son.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Gentry said.
Old Man Blackwood’s eyes were fiery red and his neck veins raised like an overpumped bike tire. “Paul says a pastor ‘ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.’”
“I know the passage, Basil.”
“‘For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?’”
“Indeed,” my father said.
“You need to control your children,” Blackwood said. “A man’s property is sacred. Your son violated my property.”
“Basil, I was just talking to Matt about what happened. He was looking for shelter from the—”
Gentry pointed a finger and interrupted. “He was spying on me and getting into my business.”
“You were hurting Jesse,” I said, my voice sounding like a mouse squeaking.
My father turned and gave me a look that told me to keep quiet.
“You defendin’ that trash you hang out with?” Blackwood said to me. He said trash but seemed like he wanted to use a different word. “We’ve talked about this, Calvin. You’re to be above reproach. You’re raising a son who’s a snare of the devil. Just like the other one.”
My father looked pained at the reference to Ben but shook it off. “Now, Basil, let’s be fair—”
“Get the camera from him,” Gentry said.
Blackwood turned to his son. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
My father held up both hands and his voice was soft and low. “Why don’t we calm down. We can work this out. This is probably all a misunderstanding. In fact, I’m—”
“It’s not a misunderstanding,” I said. I was a roaring mouse now. “Gentry was hurting Jesse. He had her in his room. He ripped her shirt.”
“You lyin’ sack of—”
“Shut up!” Blackwood thundered. He pointed a finger at me. “You know what bearing false witness against somebody means?”
“Yeah, it means lying. And I’m not lying. He had Jesse on his bed and she was screaming. It was me taking the picture that stopped him.”
Blackwood looked back at his son before asking me, “Where’s this picture?”
My father glanced at his desk, then at me.
“I’m not giving it to him,” I said.
“You give it to me now,” Blackwood said.
“Matt, let me have it,” my father said.
He reminded me of Gregory Peck in the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird. His voice was just as deep and clipped when he spoke. He didn’t sound like everyone else in Dogwood—his twang had lessened. But as he held out his hand, I took a step backward toward his bookshelf. I put a hand on a red copy of Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to steady myself.
“Just let him see what you’re saying is true,” my father said.
I searched my father’s eyes for something I could trust. I wanted him to stand up to Blackwood. To order him out of his office, out of the church. I wanted him to be Atticus and stand against injustice and stick up for Jesse.
“Matt, show him the picture.”
I reached in my pocket. My father handed the photo to Blackwood, who grabbed it and studied it closely. “Trash is growing up.”
He tore the picture in two, flicked a cigarette lighter, and burned it in front of us, dropping it in the metal trash can. It smoked and my father tossed a cup of water inside.
Blackwood stepped toward me and leaned down. His breath was as smoky as the burning Polaroid. “You’re never going to talk about this, you understand?”
I looked at my father, then at the floor.
“You answer me, son,” Blackwood said. “You’re never going to talk about this with anybody. And if you do, I’m going to talk about that brother of yours.”
“Basil, that’s not necessary,” my father said weakly.
“And you’re going to stay away from our property. You hear?”
I looked at my father, teeth clenched, tears welling. I was overcome by the man’s venom and my father’s impotence. I wanted to yell that I was going to call the sheriff. I wanted to say they would be sorry they hurt Jesse. But my trembling chin made me hold back.
“He understands,” my father said.
Blackwood stood straight. “He’d better. And you better too, Calvin. That parsonage could run into more snags. You don’t want to be living with your mama when winter comes.”
Gentry smiled at me like he had won a gold medal at the Olympics. All the evidence of his wrongdoing was gone. All the evidence but Jesse and me.
Blackwood looked back as he was leaving. “Listen, boy. Don’t worry about that trash. Pretty soon that family will be gone and the hollow will be better for it. We’ll all be better off.”
I looked at the smoldering ruins of my photo, then at my father. “I’ll never forgive you for this,” I said through tears. I ran past the Blackwoods and out of the sanctuary.
“Matt!” my father yelled.
I grabbed my bike and took off toward the road, tears streaming. When the truck passed me, Gentry made a face and rubbed his eyes, mouthing, “Poor baby.”
I rode to Dickie’s and was glad it wasn’t burning. A smoke smell hung in the area. Dickie came outside and sat on the front steps eating a bag of Fritos.
“It was the Thompson place,” he said. “Those kids like to play with matches when their parents aren’t around. They were in a closet and things got out of hand.”
“Are they okay?”
“Nobody died. I figure they learned a valuable lesson that’ll last about a week. What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” I said. I wanted to tell Dickie all about it. I wanted somebody else to know what had happened. But the more I thought, the more I knew this would have to be another secret Jesse and I would share.
That night I lay in bed with the microphone, giving two clicks every few minutes. My father came in and sat on the bed, but I turned my face to the wall. I wanted him to apologize or do something to explain his inaction. Instead he stood and walked out of the room.
I fell asleep waiting for the return clicks that never came. I dreamed I was running from a bear in the woods that growled and bared its fangs. The bear looked like Gentry Blackwood.
The next day I rode to Jesse’s house. Daisy Grace was in the backyard picking flowers and Jesse was at the front window pulling dead ones from the Ball jar. Carl had gotten used to me and only barked a couple of times when I rode up, then retreated under the house. I wondered how Jesse managed to feed herself, Daisy, and the dog on the little they received in her mother’s check.
Jesse opened the door, wearing the shirt from the day before, hand-sewn, and invited me inside. She must have felt self-conscious about her home, like a pretty woman with bad teeth will put a hand over her face when she smiles, but the walls were breaking down between us.
“I came to see if you were okay,” I said.
She looked out the back window at Daisy Grace. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I tried to reach you last night on the CB.”
“I got tired early.”
I pulled out one of the unmatched chairs at the kitchen table and sat. The table wobbled to one side and I figured it was probably because the floor was crooked.
“Is that the first time he’s done something like that?”
She turned and pulled herself up onto the counter by the sink, her dirty bare feet swinging. “What are you talking about?”
“Gentry.”
The name took her aback and she looked out the window again. “I can take care of myself. I don’t need your help.”
“But you need my help with Daisy.”
“That’s different.”
I took a deep breath. “There were marks on your stomach. Did Gentry do that?”
She squinted at me, not understanding. Then she lifted up her shirt. “You mean these?” She had a tight abdomen and I could see her ribs and a lot of her bra. She had bruises on her arms and a scratch on her neck, but it was the marks on her stomach that troubled me most. “These are my birthmarks.”
They weren’t birthmarks, but I turned my head and decided not to argue. “Pull your shirt down, please?”
“You’re blushing, aren’t you?” She sang, “Matt is blushing.”
“Are you going to pretend yesterday didn’t happen? Because I can’t. I saw what he was trying to do.”
She pulled her shirt down. “Yesterday happened. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That’s what my mama always said.”
“What doesn’t kill you will evidently leave a scar.”
“I reckon you’re right about that.”
She stared at me and I didn’t look away. I wanted to tell her what had happened in my father’s office, but I couldn’t.
A wailing sound wafted through the window and Jesse was off the counter and out the back door in a flash. She returned with Daisy Grace holding her arm.
“Quick, cut me an onion,” Jesse said, pointing toward the corner. I grabbed a butcher knife and an onion, wondering what had happened. I cut the onion in two and Jesse took one slick, wet half and put it directly on Daisy’s arm. “There, that’ll draw out the poison. Just hold it there.”
“What happened?” I said.
“Bee sting. There’s a bunch at the outhouse.”
I remembered the welts on my neck and face and thought I could have used a few onions.
“Run to our room and get a washcloth,” Jesse said.
Nothing could have prepared me for the sadness of Jesse’s bedroom. There was water damage to the windowsill. A small crib mattress lay on the floor in the corner. A tangled mess of a sheet covered it. Jesse’s bed was a stained twin mattress without a box spring. It was on a slab of plywood with bricks underneath. A bare lightbulb hung from the ceiling with a piece of string swinging low.
There was a rickety dresser that had once held a mirror. On top of the dresser were scattered pictures, one frame showing a smiling woman I thought must have been Jesse’s mother.
I found a pile of unfolded washcloths in the corner and returned to the kitchen. Jesse dunked the cloth in the water and put it in the freezer.
“I want Mama,” Daisy whimpered.
“Mama ain’t here. You got me.”
Jesse waited a little, then took the cloth from the freezer and told Daisy to hold it to her arm. Gradually the girl calmed. Her arm swelled, but Jesse’s quick action seemed to make a difference.
“You want to watch TV?” Jesse said to her.
Daisy put her head down and ran toward the living room. There was a loud click and a static sound.
“I’ve been brainstorming what we could do while you’re at school,” I said.
“I been thinking too. I’m just going to drop out.”
“No. You said the truant officer will show up.”
The channel knob turned and I heard the sound effects of Huckleberry Hound.
“I’ll hide, just like when the Jehovah’s Witnesses come.”
“I think there’s a better way.”
“What way is that?”
“I saw a sign yesterday at a house in town that said, ‘Child care.’ I wrote down the number and the address.”
Jesse stared at the scrap of paper I held out. “How much do they charge?”
“I don’t know, but it’s worth asking, don’t you think?”
She nodded and bit her lip. “I can’t leave her with just anybody.”
Daisy giggled in the living room and turned up the sound.
“Turn that down,” Jesse yelled.
“Then y’all be quiet!” Daisy said.
Jesse smiled and shook her head. I could tell she was rolling the idea over in her mind.
“Maybe you could call that lady and find out. I’d have to get her there early, before the bus runs, but then I could get on at the Second Street stop by the gas station. And then get off there in the afternoon and pick her up.”
I nodded. It sounded plausible but exhausting. I had never considered how much my parents did until I thought of Jesse becoming a full-time mother.
“I’ll call when I get home, but you need to keep the CB on so we can talk.”
She rubbed her hands. “I’m worried somebody could listen, Matt. Like Blackwood.” Jesse scrunched up her face. “How did you know about Gentry?”
“I was there. I saw through the window. Didn’t you see me?”
“I saw lightning flash but didn’t hear no thunder. And then Gentry was up and cussing and running for the door.”
She didn’t know I had taken a picture, and I wasn’t about to tell her. “He saw me in the window and followed. But I hid. I was so happy you got away.”
“We was out of meat. And Daisy broke the last eggs we had. I let her watch the TV while I went over to their pond, thinking there was nobody home. Then Gentry came along.”
The cartoon sounds gave way to the familiar theme of Gilligan’s Island.
“So you saw the trouble I was in and you tried to help,” she said.
I nodded. “Jesse, how does this end? Are you going to be Daisy’s mom the rest of your life?”
“Somebody has to be.” She looked out the window at a car passing, the dust leaving a brown coating on the leaves. “I need her to get stronger so she can fend for herself. Maybe till she gets our age.”
“That’s a long time to keep a secret.”
“You’re right. But it’s not too long to keep a promise.”