Chapter 24
Clayton seemed to find excuses for being around. He showed up regular and I always held on to a slim hope he’d look at me again, see me, and somehow Laci would fade away in his mind the way a shadow does on a cloudy day. He’d first spend time with Papa, who got to talking about crops, our land back home, working for the show, you name it. Papa turned friendly, adding even more hurt and anger to how I already felt.
A few days after that night, Clayton dropped by and had the nerve to ask, “Hey, Wallis Ann, where you been?”
“Right here.”
“Aw, come on. You know what I mean. You ain’t been coming to watch me dive anymore. You don’t talk to me much anymo re.”
I told him the same thing I’d told Momma lately. “I been too tired.”
Clayton looked disappointed in that answer, but I was put out enough such that I didn’t really care. Of course I was tired, skulking around after them on their midnight rambles, yet I couldn’t seem to stop myself. It sure was something watching how Laci changed when she was with him, how she seemed like another person altogether. It was the intimacy between them, this tremendous secret they held, which only served to make me feel even more of a trespasser. Observing those nightly encounters give way to a bad feeling. Like at some of them churches where we’d seen snake handlers. Watching them I was certain someone was going to get bit, sooner or later, and my muscles had got all tense, knowing it was only a matter of time till something went wrong. I was told my faith was weak, and needed strengthening, but I never did hold on to no snake.
Clayton said, “You been acting different. Did I do something wrong?”
“I’d say.”
“So I have.What is it? It ain’t fair you won’t even tell me.”
“It ain’t fair you don’t know your own self.”
He give me a funny look, and before he got suspicious, I made the excuse I had to go help Momma. I suspected he seen I won’t good company right then. A gloomy summer storm cloud looked more cheery than me. Laci sat on a camp stool with her fiddle, sending out random notes of songs now and then. He got involved talking to Papa, and I got the chance to study on him and Laci. There won’t a hint of what they was doing at night. Only evidence was Clayton give this little secret look towards her when he took his leave. It was so subtle, I wouldn’t a thought a thing about it—if I hadn’t already witnessed the inexplicable. I felt myself getting into a slow boil over that little glance what lasted the rest of the evening.
It’s what propelled me to sneak behind them. It was getting harder to watch, especially when I went to imagining it was me, and not Laci, Clayton was loving on. Me he held and kissed. Me whose dress he pushed aside, his hand touching the damp, secret place between my legs. Me who give him what Laci was giving him—knowingly, or unknowingly. I wondered what Papa would do if he found out? What he’d do if he found her sneaking off into the woods, letting a man take her clothes off, sometimes even helping him herself? It come to me, Laci was thinking real different about things, more so than we’d ever considered. She was feeling things like any other normal person. And she’d somehow grasped the dealings between a man and a woman as natural as anyone.
I couldn’t stop thinking of what I’d seen. How did Laci know about that, anyway? Maybe it had come natural to her, like her playing music. Maybe it won’t nothing but instinct, like how critters know what to do from the moment they come into this world. Maybe she’d simply followed his lead, like she’d always done with me if I done something she’d not ever seen. All this thinking about them and what they done was like picking up a hammer and whacking my thumb over and over again, creating so much pain, the entire middle part of me felt torn and tender. If I tried to ask her about it, or tell her how I felt, would she know or even understand what she’d done? That’s what made it worse. As upset and mad as I was, any effort I made to get her to respond would be like a moth beating against a window in a futile attempt to get at the light. It would be senseless because she’d never be able to tell me how, much less why.
* * *
Thanksgiving Day come and my mood had descended into something resembling a huge black hole, so deep I couldn’t find my way out. Holidays, usually a happy time at home, had me wanting to leave, even if it meant going back to Uncle Hardy’s. I would rather suffer his stingy ways than have to try so hard at pretending everything was fine. I worked silently around our tents, chopping wood, doing anything. Doing everything.
Soon I run out of even the made-up things to do, so I meandered over to Trixie’s to help her tend to the animals and Mr. M. As I walked up, she was using a body brush on one of the Friesians.
She glanced at me over the horse’s back and said, “Boy. You don’t look no better than you did last time you come by.”
I put my hand on the horse’s shoulder and watched the muscle twitch.
“What’s the matter?”
I shrugged and grabbed a currycomb from the pile of grooming tools on the ground nearby and went to work on the other horse.
“It ain’t got something to do with Clayton, does it?” Trixie offered. She stopped what she was doing long enough to study my reaction to her question. “It does! What’s going on?”
“Nothing!”
“Oh come on, Wallis Ann. Your look says it all.”
I was too embarrassed to tell her everything, so I said, “It’s nothing. I think he likes Laci.”
“Really?”
I regretted saying it soon as I did. I didn’t like how she latched on so quick, or the way her voice rose at the hint of gossip. It was too late now.
“Yeah. I mean, he’s been coming by to see Papa, and I’ve seen him looking at her. I’m probably wrong.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Do you like him or something?”
“Not really.”
“Well, you don’t look none too happy.”
“I worry about Laci is all.”
Ever skeptical when it come to the topic of Clayton, Trixie said, “Uh-huh.”
For somebody I hadn’t known long, she sure had me figured out. I got busy with the currycomb and changed the subject. I talked a blue streak about Thanksgiving at Stampers Creek, and asked Trixie all sorts of questions about her family. I stayed until I was done with the horse, only so Trixie would see I truly won’t bothered at all. When I returned to our tent, it was time to wash, put on clean clothes and go eat the special Thanksgiving supper Paulie fixed.
The cookhouse tent was already filling with workers and performers alike, everyone gathering together for a change instead of eating in shifts, and the packed tent was steamy and warm. Paulie had found a bunch a creasy greens near to one of the creeks, and he’d mixed those in with some collards he’d got from one of the local farms, and that pungent scent mixed in with other odors, human and animal alike. Some of the workers had shot wild turkeys. Paulie had dressed them out, and he even made a corn pone dressing. The food looked almost as good as Momma’s. Paulie served heaping piles of mashed taters, dressing, gravy, greens seasoned with fatback and biscuits. I only picked at the food, while occasionally shooting moody looks at Clayton as he sat at his usual table with Diablo, Mr. Massey, and other workers. Laci ate like her legs was plumb hollow and she couldn’t fill them up. I caught Clayton looking at her so many times I almost threw my plate across the tent at him.
Momma kept on commenting over my lack of appetite until I sort of growled at her, “I said, I ain’t hungry.”
She drew back like I’d slapped her, while Papa stopped eating altogether and didn’t look none too happy with my tone.
“I’m sorry. It’s . . .”
Momma said, “I know. You’re tired. That’s all you been saying over a week now. You’ve been in this pitiful state long enough. Wallis Ann, what is it, is something else wrong?”
“ No. ”
Momma shared a glance with Papa before she resumed eating while Laci stared at my plate. I give a sidelong glance at her empty one, and figured she was wanting me to give her the food I’d not touched. I did something spiteful then. I understood it was, and still, I did it. I heard Papa say, “Wallis Ann?” but I didn’t stop. I took my mostly full plate up to Paulie and handed it to him.
He looked from it to me, to it again. “You done? Seems like a waste a good food. You ain’t hardly tetched it. Don’t you want to give it to Laci?”
“No. I don’t.”
I spun on my heels and left the cookhouse tent. I didn’t look at Momma, Papa or nobody. I drifted around the mostly silent carnival, feeling sorry for myself. The only noises come from the occasional huffing sort of noise from some of the animals who’d been watered and fed earlier. I considered the possibility of telling Momma and Papa, for no other reason than I couldn’t hardly stand the thought of Clayton and Laci being together anymore. I wanted to stop it. I wanted someone else to hurt like I was, and though I had no idea how I’d even begin, it got stuck in my head to tell, tell, tell. What mouthful of food or two I’d taken churned in my stomach as I thought about what I was about to do.
At our tents I sat by the fire waiting for everyone. The sound of footsteps come soon enough. My hands got cold and sweaty, and I swallowed over and over. I nervously brushed a hand over my hair, thinking I couldn’t do it. I was losing my nerve. Two figures come into view. Momma and Papa was alone. They made their way by the fire and went to warming their fingers.
“Where’s Laci?”
Momma sighed, leaned down to poke at a log, as Papa tossed another one on. My heart fluttered like it might falter or quit altogether. I was sure they was put out with me for leaving the cookhouse tent like I’d done.The flare of the fire lit everything around us with a deep orange glow, while their shadows stretched into black, skinny giants behind them. My insides tightened. There was only one person Laci could be with, and knowing this solidified my decision.
My tone too sharp, I said, “Is she with Clayton?”
Momma sounded exasperated. “What in God’s name has got into you, Wallis Ann? Yes, she is. If you hadn’t left so quick, you’d have been there when he stopped by the table and said he’d wanted to take you both for a walk.”
When them floodwaters tossed us out of our truck, we’d had no control of where we’d end up or how we’d get there. That was how I felt right then. Like I had no control, only this time over my words.
My voice dropped low, and when they come out of me, it sounded hateful, forced. “He’d rather be alone with her anyway.”
Momma stared at me with an odd look. “What do you mean by that, Wallis Ann?”
Now that I’d started it, the words wouldn’t stop.
I choked on them like I was being forced to take a vile dose of medicine. “You don’t know what all’s been going on. You and Papa got no idea, and if either of you did, you wouldn’t have never let Laci go with him.”
Momma shot a look at Papa, who was in the process of lifting a log off the woodpile nearby.
He dropped it onto the embers, the force of the log landing caused a heap of tiny devil snow to shoot up into the air and fall in a shimmering rain around us. How fitting, I thought, it’s like being in hell.
He put his hands on his hips. “Wallis Ann? What are you talking about?”
“Clayton and Laci. They been sneaking out at night. They been . . . doing things.”
Papa took a step backwards like I’d hit him. He stared at me for a split second, then he looked to Momma, who’d put one hand over her mouth in shock. Papa’s mouth thinned out, his lips set in a severe line, and his eyes turned so dark, like a blackness or something evil took a hold of him and stared out at us.
His voice was low and terrible. “What do you mean doing things? What sorts a things?”
My knees trembled first and from there, that shaking took over my entire self. Papa’s big fists clenched, then unclenched, and he looked like he might tear someone apart, limb by limb and wouldn’t think twice about it. I went to panting, my breath coming in panicked little gusts like I’d been running, and I could feel tears starting to come. I hated crying. I despised how my voice sounded as I tried to explain, and I couldn’t seem to form sentences.
“I. They. Clayton and Laci. They was. Together. Naked.”
Momma said, “What? Laci? Wallis Ann! Are you telling us a story?”
I spun around to face her. “Momma! Why would I make that sort a thing up?”
Papa said, “I’m gonna kill him.”
Momma tried to grab him, and he yanked his arm out of her hands. This was not what I’d expected. I hadn’t thought of how they would react or what might happen. Papa’s anger was big, bigger than my hurt maybe, because his face went slack so that he looked even less like himself than he had a few seconds ago. It was like the person inside of him, the person we knowed, was gone. He run inside their tent and when he come out with his shotgun, Momma’s hands templed in prayer, and she bowed her forehead to her fingertips. I grabbed at his shirtsleeve tight and he jerked his arm up hard, almost tearing off my fingernails.
I yelled, “Papa, please, don’t! Don’t hurt nobody!”
He wouldn’t even look at me when he said, “What did you think, Wallis Ann? Did you think I’d hear that and do nothing?” To Momma he said, “Go on and pray, but praying ain’t gonna help him now. That son of a bitch been coming around here and all he was doing was sniffing after her like a dog after a bone.”
Papa leaned down so his face was close to mine, the heat of rage coming off him like I was standing right inside an enormous blazing fire. I wanted to run, to get away from him.
“And what about you, Wallis Ann? Has he touched you too? Goddamn it, has he?”
“What? No, Papa! No!”
“Don’t you lie to me! You tell me now what he’s done!”
I shrank from him, thinking about the kissing, and desperately looked to Momma for help. She stared at me in horror, stunned.
I cried out, “He’s not done nothing to me!”
“How long you known about this?”
I dropped my gaze. I couldn’t look at him.
“Goddamn it, Wallis Ann. What the hell?”
I stumbled to Momma, and she held out a hand as if to ward me off, turning her head like the sight of me sickened her.
“Momma, I’m sorry!”
Her face was white, and she shook her head as if denying my apology. Angry words spilled from her mouth.
“I thought we’d raised you right. Weren’t you supposed to be looking after her? Dear sweet Jesus, I can’t believe you let this happen.”
She didn’t have to say, The way you was supposed to have looked after Seph. Without warning, everything I’d been holding in the past few months come out of me like Seph’s sickness had come out of his mouth.
“I’m always having to look after Laci! I’m always having to explain Laci! I can’t hardly have a minute to myself without having Laci stuck to me like a burr!”
Momma face went hard as the wall of granite rock over to Salt Gap. She kept staring at me, like she didn’t know me, her expression reminding me of the day she’d almost touched the body of a long, slick hellbender salamander while working near Stampers Creek. Disgusted. Shocked. Dismayed. I wished I’d never said nothing. I wished I’d confronted Clayton instead. I’d only been thinking out of spite.
Papa grabbed my arm and said, “Come on!”
I yanked away from him, and hollered, “NO!”
Papa said, “Wallis Ann. You get yourself on down that path, and now.”
“Momma!”
She turned away as Papa snatched my arm again, his grip so tight, later on I’d have a bruise. He hauled me towards Mr. Cooper’s tent. As Papa yanked me along, there stood Laci and Clayton only twenty feet in front of us, near the Ferris wheel, and I went ice cold.
Papa seen’em too, and he dropped my arm, and yelled, “Hey! Get the hell away from her!”
At the sight of Papa running straight for him, shotgun aimed, Clayton’s features shifted from smiling to openmouthed alarm. He took off, pulling Laci along behind him. She tripped, almost falling, and he caught her and resumed running. Papa barreled after them, and I was scared for what he might do.
I followed shouting, “Laci!”
It looked like she tried to twist around at the sound of my voice, except Clayton darted around the corner of a tent and they both vanished by the time we got to it. People scattered at the sight of Papa with his shotgun, charging like a black bear.
He yelled, “Stop him!” only everyone looked at him, confounded because they didn’t know who he meant or what he was doing.
Papa finally stopped running, and seconds later I caught up to him.
He said, “Come on!” and led me back the way we’d come.
Soon we was in an area where nobody had seen the commotion, although everyone still shied away from him, looking like he was. He stampeded Mr. Cooper’s tent and proceeded to chew on him about the caliber of some of people he was hiring.
Mr. Cooper held up his hands, and said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, now, Mr. Stamper. What’s the problem?”
“That goddamn young buck you hired has disgraced my daughter! She was an innocent till he put his filthy hands on her! She don’t know any better!”
I shifted uncomfortably, refusing to look at Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper said, “Well, hang on now. I seen them walk by here not more than five minutes ago, hand in hand. That seems pretty normal between two young people. It ain’t disgraceful to hold hands now, is it?”
“That ain’t what I’m talking about. Them walking around. I’m talking about something else.”
Papa spat on the ground while Mr. Cooper eyed his shotgun.
He said, “What you aiming to do with that?”
“I’m gonna shoot his ass, that’s what I’m gonna do. He’s gone and forced himself on her! He’ll pay for what he’s done! She’s not to blame for this!”
I remembered how Laci took off her clothes, and the thought made me shake my head.
Mr. Cooper said, “You disagree with your papa?”
Papa twisted around and said in a voice so different, if I’d closed my eyes I wouldn’t have known who was talking.
“Is there something else you need to tell me, Wallis Ann?”
His question flustered me, and I shook my head hard, as if emphasis would cover deceit. Papa’s anger was already burning out of control and I won’t about to stoke it. I sure didn’t want to get burned any more than I already had. Papa didn’t take his eyes off me, even when Mr. Cooper started talking again.
“He’s a big part of my show. I can’t be having my main folks getting shot up. Maybe this is all just a misunderstanding.”
Papa jerked his thumb at me and said, “It ain’t. She’ll tell you.”
A swarm of jagged, disconnected thoughts swirled in my head, like looking at oneself in a broken mirror and seeing fragments instead of as a whole.
Papa said, “Wallis Ann?”
I mashed my lips together.
“Wallis Ann.”
I swallowed and without looking at either of them, I whispered, “They been doing . . . things.”
Mr. Cooper said, “They. Sounds mutual, Mr. Stamper.”
Papa aimed the gun at Mr. Cooper. “Get that goddamn disgusting thought out of your head. Laci’s never been off on her own. She’s naïve, and she sure as hell ain’t here for his entertainment.”
Mr. Cooper sounded skeptical. “Uh-huh. Fine, then. Let’s go on see if we can’t find’em.”
He led the way from his tent, hollering out to some of the workers nearby. Papa breathed heavy, his fury seeming to build again at Mr. Cooper’s lack of alarm.
“Hey, boys! Come on! Got to get us a little search going on.”
Soon a small group had gathered up, and Mr. Cooper, without giving out any particulars, said they were to all go and look for Laci. He made no mention of Clayton at all.
“Find the girl. Y’all know what she looks like.”
He turned to Papa, and said, “So, we’ll find your girl and how about you leave young Clayton be?”
Papa shot a look at him. Mr. Cooper shifted his shoulders and turned away to direct the workers. They spread out, and people went to calling out “Laci!” Some went and got lanterns.
I said to Papa, “She likes the Friesians. She fed them apples.”
He looked at me, like he won’t sure if he should trust my word, but he motioned at me to follow him and we checked that area. Towards the woods, I noticed how the tiny flicker of lights from search lanterns dotted the blackness like fireflies, and I hoped Laci might see the lights and come towards them. We went back to where Mr. Cooper was giving directions to anyone new who joined. There was a few groups of two or three skirting around one area of woods.
Finally, in a low voice, I said to Papa, “I can show you where else they went. Maybe she’s there.”
He was some calmer by now, and he stared at the ground for a few seconds, and then nodded.
I said, “We got to go back towards our tents.”
He said, “Lead.”
There won’t nothing but the sound of our breathing, and hurried footsteps. When we got to our own tents, we stopped, and Papa told Momma what happened. She sank down onto the camp stool, like her legs couldn’t hold her up. I couldn’t speak at all. I couldn’t offer her a thing. We left her behind, and I led Papa along the path, then into the other section of woods different from where the others was looking. We ducked out of the way of tree branches, some of them scraping across my cheeks before I could grab them. I tripped a few times over some of the bigger stones I couldn’t see. I didn’t recollect having so much trouble when I’d followed Laci and Clayton, and Papa’s silence over my clumsiness made me uncomfortable, his usual concern overshadowed by his anger. We finally come to the edge of the tree line and stood facing the clearing.
“Here,” was all I said.
Papa started across the small meadow, looking around, and then searched the other side of the clearing. Laci won’t here. If she’d been here, we’d have spotted her easy enough.
Even so, I called out “Laci! It’s me, and Papa. Laci! Are you here . . . ?”
Papa walked around in a circle, looking at the flattened grass, kicking aside a stick or two.
I offered a suggestion. “I could wait. Maybe she’ll turn up.”
He stared towards the dusky woods and we could faintly hear the other men calling out from all the way across the carnival, “Hey, girlie, yoo-hoo!”
He handed me his shotgun and turned away. I thought he would leave without speaking. He hesitated, and faced me again, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coveralls.
He said, “You should a come to us. You should a known better. I’m right disappointed in you, Wallis Ann.”
He walked away without looking back. Them words was the worst thing he’d ever said, even worse than him questioning me. I’d rather he’d a whupped me. I waited until I couldn’t hear him no more.When I was sure he was gone, I could feel a few tears gathering in the corners of my eyes, threatening to roll down my cheeks, but it wouldn’t feel right, it would only feel like self-pity. I tilted my head back and studied the stars glittering in the night sky and tried to empty all thoughts, so my mind was a vacant vessel. I refused to ruminate on where Laci might be, or what might have happened. All of my earlier anger and jealousy had dissolved. I eventually left the clearing to wait along the rim line of trees. I leaned against one, and set the shotgun beside me. It got even chillier and I worried Laci might be as cold as I was. I settled down to wait the rest of the night, with plenty of time to think about what I’d done—or not done.
At dawn, I rose to my feet, took the time to look around once more, called to Laci, hoping against hope. The sound of birds starting their morning song was all I got in return, that and the scraping of squirrels looking for nuts. I picked up the shotgun, and made my way back, my feet crunching sticks, the sound seeming loud in the early morning air. Momma sat by the fire but Papa was still off with the others searching. When she seen me, she said nothing, her face as chilly as the morning. She handed me a cup of hot coffee, eyes gone dark as the liquid. I sat near the fire to thaw out. I swallowed hard, determined to be strong. A minute later, she reached out for my hand, and held on to it, and I gripped hers in return. I couldn’t be strong anymore, and tears of gratefulness slid down my face, and dripped into the hot coffee she’d handed me. I tilted the cup, and drank deep, as if I could swallow our sorrow.