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.”
23
DADDY GAVE HER to me that night. After I dropped the wood. After the rattle of it falling to the floor quieted and the room was silent, he stretched out his two hands, the baby girl cradled there, and handed her to me. Then he told me to get on. Get on out to the other room. Get on out.
He wrapped Juna in the tarps he spread every spring over the tobacco beds, dragged her up and over the rise behind the house, kept on as far as he could, covered her over with rocks, and said he’d bury her in the spring. No other choice. The ground was froze solid. We both knew she wouldn’t be there come spring. Something would take her, but we couldn’t, neither of us, say that.
We burned the mattress, the dry ticking bursting into a flame that let me get my first good look at that baby’s face. The fire warmed us, crackled, sparkled, showed me her dark eyes. She was fair-haired, at least for the time being, and as big as any baby should be. She wasn’t Joseph Carl’s. I knew she wasn’t; even when the women worried the baby was coming too early, I knew she wasn’t. I knew she was another man’s child, a man who had come before Joseph Carl.
Daddy shoveled dirt over the last of the flame, dousing the embers. He sent us inside and left us. When he came back, he had milk, most likely from the Brashears, most likely from a goat. We didn’t know, neither of us, what to give a child. I used one of the bottles Mrs. Ripberger had left along with all the tiny clothes. I had boiled them because that’s what the ladies told me to do. I touched the rubbery tip to the baby’s mouth, and she took to it. Just that much made me smile. Never thought so little could make me smile so big.
Daddy said we could never tell. Sure as he saw Joseph Carl hang, those Baines would see me hang. Out of spite, they’d do it, Daddy said. They’d come back, every one of those Baine brothers, to see me hang. Joseph Carl didn’t have no business dying, and neither did I. This made me wonder how long Daddy had known Joseph Carl should have never been hanged. Probably he’d known all along, and that’s why he would die before that ground ever thawed.