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.”