Old Wounds (32 page)

While the second half of the class shot their qualifying rounds, Elizabeth and the first group stood, as directed, behind the twenty-five yard line. The firing range was located within the county landfill, and as her car had wound through the grim wasteland, she had been able to catch a glimpse of her own roof in the distance, its dull aluminum shining in the sun, the familiar outline of Pinnacle Mountain rising behind. Now she looked around, marveling at the strange set of circumstances that had brought her to this place.

The eight qualifiers of the second group lined up, and Alex began to go over his instructions. At the end of the line, the deaf old man pulled out his gun and drew a bead on the target. At once, Alex was at his side, explaining loudly that he must wait. The deaf old man grinning happily at him, nodded with perfect incomprehension.

“Hawkins.” Alex jerked his head, motioning Phillip to go to the old man’s side. Elizabeth watched, fascinated, as Phillip, with great and tender care, stayed by the old man’s side throughout the exercise. The old man was shooting a very large revolver of ancient and unknown manufacture, and now the sound on the range was
BOOM…bambambambambambambam.

“Your man knows just how to talk to Daddy,” the deaf man’s daughter declared between rounds of gunfire. “Daddy didn’t want me helping him while he was shootin’—claims I aggravate him.”

My man.
Elizabeth smiled. The words sounded good. And suddenly it felt perfectly natural and even desirable to be at the landfill, at the firing range on a fine October day. The exciting smell of gunpowder drifted toward them and the sun glinted silver and gold off the brass of discarded cartridges littering the wiry brown grass. The deaf man’s daughter pointed behind them to a gentle rolling ridge overlooking an acre or so of heaped garbage. “My mamaw and papaw used to have a big old house up there. Mamaw had ever flower you could name out front. It like to broke her heart when they had to leave.”

The second group finished and Phillip stayed with his charge to make sure the old man’s pistol was safely empty. Then he returned to Elizabeth’s side.

“I thank you fer helpin’ Daddy. How’d he do?” the daughter asked.

“Ninety-seven,” Phillip answered. “He’s a good shot. He said he’d have made one hundred, but I aggravated him, standing so close.”

They gathered under a large shed at the rear of the range and Alex collected their checks, recorded their scores, filled out their certificates, and wrote down the registration number of each weapon. Many of the participants were examining and comparing handguns, each vocal in praise for his weapon of choice. Elizabeth was charmed to note that one young man, wearing a T-shirt blazoned with the name of a local Baptist church, had a large mother-of-pearl cross inlaid in the black grip of his pistol. Immediately the question formed in her mind:
What handgun would Jesus carry?

T
HE
R
EAPER
G
AME

Early October 1986

T
HE SMELL OF
freshly sawn lumber was enticing, as was the empty interior of the newly constructed chicken house. It sat there beneath the big black walnut tree, a perfect little building with one window, a door, and a smaller door just for the chickens. Pa had finished building it last week, but there would be no chickens till spring. Until then it was Rosie’s own possession—a fort, a clubhouse, a hideout.

She had furnished her lair with a few old cushions and a wooden box for a table. The row of nest boxes on the wall were her bookcase, and some of her books and notebooks filled the little cubicles, where, this time next year, fat hens would lay their brown eggs.

She stood and looked out the window, her window. Maythorn was late. And there was no sign of her on the hillside. The butterscotch squares that she and Mum had made after lunch were getting cold and the milk she had brought in a jar was getting warm. No more waiting.

She sat down on the largest of the cushions, opened her copy of The Hobbit, and began to read. Her hand went to and fro from the tin of cookies, alternating now and again with the jar of milk. Like the hobbits, Rosemary was always ready for a little something to eat.

Footsteps outside the chicken house startled her and she was no longer Bilbo Baggins, cozy in his hobbit hole in the Shire. She looked with dismay at the tin of cookies and saw that she had eaten almost all of them. A meager few inches of milk sloshed in the bottom of the canning jar.

The door opened on its squeaky hinges and Pa stepped into the chicken house. He was carrying his toolbox. Hey, Rosebud, he said. I didn’t know you were here. He looked at the nest boxes and made a face. Uh-oh, I’m going to have to ask you to move your books out of the nest boxes; I’m not quite done fixing them.

They look done to me, she said, slowly removing the books. What’s wrong with them?

Pa had a funny look on his face as he watched her stack the books neatly on the floor. The hammer in his hand tapped impatiently on the side of the nest box.

Just needs more nails to make sure it stays put, he answered, grinning at her. Once those big fat hens your mum’s planning on raising start laying, we don’t want the nest boxes to come crashing down, do we? Think of the scrambled eggs!

Oh, Pa. Rosie giggled and settled back with her book.

You better run on out of here—I think maybe I saw Maythorn up by the scuttle hole—reckon she’s waiting for you.

The big goof, Rosie groused. She was supposed to come down here. But with a glance at the almost empty milk jar and cookie tin, she picked up her climbing stick and started off.

As she was crossing the branch to begin the hike up to the scuttle hole, she remembered the book Uncle Wade had sent her. It was all about the Cherokee Indians and she was eager to show it to Maythorn. There were even pictures in it of people named Blackfox—maybe Maythorn’s kin.

She ran back to the little building.
Bangbangbangbang—
Pa was making sure the nest boxes didn’t fall down. His back was to the door and he didn’t hear her as she stepped into the chicken house. His hammer was tapping busily inside one of the nests and he didn’t even notice as she took the book from the floor.

Suddenly Pa whirled around. Rosemary! I thought…He glanced back at the row of nest boxes. His face looked funny, almost angry, but then a big smile spread itself across his face and he dropped the hammer into his toolbox. Hey, girl, you snuck up on me like an Indian. You nearly made me jump out of my boots.

Forgot my book, she explained, and was out the door and on her way back up the hill.

There was no sign of Maythorn at the scuttle hole. Rosie checked under their secret message stone—a flat gray rock the size of a turkey platter that they had wrestled, with much difficulty, from the pasture below. There was no message in the plastic bag where a notepad and ballpoint awaited use.

Rosie hesitated, wondering if she should take the path down to Mullmore. It wasn’t fun anymore, going to Mullmore. The big house had come to feel cold and unfriendly and the people who lived there never seemed quite real. It was like they were all telling secrets to one another behind her back. Their voices said one thing but their eyes said something else.

And the worst thing—now Tamra was around all the time. Her mom worked for the Mullins most days, so Tamra rode the bus home from school with Maythorn and Rosie. She was there all afternoon till her mother went home at six, and having her around changed everything.

She always wants to play that dumb reaper game. I hate it.

Rosie stared down toward Mullmore, where the glistening water of the swimming pool winked at her through the trees. I wish Jared had never started that dumb game.

The huge basement, crowded with boxes and stored furniture was where they played it. With the lights off, the basement was black dark—and, according to Jared, a perfect place for the game. He would wait behind the door upstairs, counting slowly while, with the lights on, the girls hid. Then all at once the lights would go out and the door at the top of the stairs would open. A shaft of yellow light would appear and, standing black against the light, Jared. The door would shut, and in the darkness he would start down the stairs, intoning the words: Here comes the reaper to put you to bed. Here comes the reaper to chop off your head.

It’s just hide-and-seek, Maythorn had said when Rosie protested that the game was creepy. And it was…. But the darkness and the words and the black thing that Jared covered his head with made it all too scary. Once, jammed into a narrow space between a stack of boxes and the wall, Rosie had crouched, heart pounding, as the Reaper paced nearer and nearer, chanting the chilling words in a strange, deep voice. His hand had brushed so close to her face that she could smell the heavy scent of the clove cigarettes Jared and Mike liked to smoke, and a sudden spurt of pee had soaked her underpants. Hot with shame, she had escaped up the basement steps when at last the game had come to its close and Jared had allowed the light to be turned on.

Tears burned in Rosemary’s eyes. It’s all changing. Why do things have to change?

27.

H
IDDEN
S
ECRETS
…

Sunday, October 23

The morning air
was crisp and clear. A light frost the night before had wilted some of the tenderest vegetation, but in sheltered spots, great mats of rich green chickweed still flourished, bearing a myriad of tiny white star flowers. More and more leaves were falling and they rustled underfoot as Rosemary led the way up the trail to the scuttle hole, followed by her mother and Phillip Hawkins, all wielding stout sticks to aid in the climb.

The three dogs accompanied them—Molly and Ursa ranging in an ever-widening circle, James staying very close. Rosemary set a brisk pace, anxious to visit Mullmore again, but she paused at the sight of the little dog, who had stopped to investigate a huge, dry puffball. Unable to resist, she reached out her stick to tap the globular mushroom. It burst on contact, releasing a small brown cloud of spores, and James retreated, sneezing reproachfully.

At the scuttle hole she paused again, waiting for her slower-moving elders to catch up. She had found her feet flying up the old trail, and could almost believe herself ten years old again, so effortless was the ascent. “I’ve got four-wheel drive” had been her standard response when her parents marveled at how easily she ran up and down the steep slopes.

Her mother reached the top of the ridge where the line fence divided Full Circle Farm’s pasture from Mullmore’s wooded slopes. She was breathing hard.

“I’m impressed, Rosemary. For a supposedly sedentary academic, your four-wheel drive is still pretty good.”

Elizabeth turned to look at Phillip, still toiling up the path. When Rosemary announced at breakfast that she absolutely
had
to go to Mullmore, he’d insisted on accompanying them. “There’s been no sign of Bib Maitland, but I’d like to tag along…if you ladies can put up with me.”

The night before, Rosemary had read late, right through all fourteen of her spy notebooks. She had followed her younger self through the early, happy, innocent days to the last few notebooks, those which recorded her growing unease with Mullmore and its inhabitants.

Propped up in her narrow bed under the low eaves of her childhood room, she looked around at the familiar surroundings. Her favorite childhood books, the collection of plastic horses, temporarily restored to their own shelf, a small framed reproduction of Van Gogh’s
Starry Night,
which she still loved, in spite of deeming it too much of a cliché to hang in her own house—all these old friends should have comforted her.

She shivered and pulled up the faded patchwork quilt Mum had made for her. The soft pastel squares—many salvaged from outgrown or worn-out family clothing—told stories of their own, and she let her fingers trace some of the most familiar.

The pale blue pieces are from work shirts, Mum’s and Pa’s; this lavender used to be really bright purple—scraps from those awful curtains in Laurie’s room. The green was a dress Grammer Grey sent Mum.

Her hand stopped on a soft rose patch.
This was from the Cherokee dress Granny Thorn made for me. Maythorn had one just like it. I wore mine till it fell apart, and Mum was able to get only a few patches out of it.

The last of the spy notebooks lay across her knees. Reluctantly she opened it and began to read.

We were in our special tree near the old sem cemitery when Jared and Mike came along. They’d been hunting with their bows and arrows and they had two dead rabbits. They pulled their skins off just like Cletus did that time, but I didn’t get sick. We stayed very quiet and they never knew we were there. Jared messed up his rabbit, trying to cut it apart, but Mike did his very quick, just like Mum cuts up a chicken. Mum says you have to pay attention to where the joints are and then the knife will slide through. Mike is good at it. He laughed at Jared when Jared got mad, and Jared picked up his rabbit and threw it off into the bushes.

The chime of her cell phone brought her back to the present and Rosemary reached for it eagerly. As she had expected, the caller ID told her it was Jared.

“Not too late to be calling, I hope.” His soft voice in her ear was like a caress. “I had a dinner meeting that went on and on. Can I see you tomorrow?”

She tossed the notebook aside and curled up more comfortably. “Hey, Jared, I was just reading about you.”

He hadn’t much liked being reminded of his teenage self. “For god’s sake, Rosemary, that was nineteen or twenty years ago! I know I went through a weird stage—horror movies and Stephen King and bad music. The therapist said I was getting back at Moon for bringing me to live out there in the boonies. Yes, I’m embarrassed to say I did get a kick out of scaring you little girls—Maythorn and Tamra particularly. They were always hanging around, and to be honest, I think they liked being scared.”

He hadn’t remembered the words to the Reaper Game that had terrified her so. Nor had he remembered the incident with the rabbit.

“I do remember playing hide-and-seek in the basement with you girls. Didn’t I dress up in a Dracula costume or something? I think I used to have one, left over from a big Halloween party. Pretty childish behavior for a teenage boy—Rosemary, do you think we could talk about something else now? Like maybe dinner tomorrow night?”

I shouldn’t have told him about the notebooks. It embarrassed him. Stupid of me. He’s a totally different person now—what’s that thing about how all our cells renew every seven years? I certainly wouldn’t be spending time with him now if he still wanted to play the Reaper Game.

But they had plans for dinner the next night and more plans for the following weekend. With a contented sigh, Rosemary returned to the final notebook.

“I finished reading through all the spy notebooks last night. There were a bunch of odd things, actually. Maythorn and I were pretty obnoxious, I see now, with all our sneaking around and spying.”

Elizabeth, Phillip, and Rosemary were resting on a fallen tree before starting the climb down to Mullmore. Elizabeth watched her daughter attentively but said nothing, waiting to see where Rosemary’s reading had taken her.

“Some of the stuff I wrote—I don’t know if I was making it up or exaggerating or…or what.” Rosemary stood and walked to the scuttle hole. “That’s why I want so much to go back down there: I need to see it again. Then maybe I can sort out things.”

She slipped through the narrow opening and started down the trail, James trotting behind her. Phillip sighed and stood, stretching out a helping hand to Elizabeth.

“Onward and downward,” she said, and cautiously angled through the scuttle hole. “It’s worth seeing, Phillip. Honest.”

They followed Rosemary, who was moving with great determination along a secondary trail that slanted off to the left. “I wanted to go to our special tree first,” she called back to them. “It was a big maple with wide branches and we had a rope to help us climb up.”

Nothing was left of the rope, and the maple had undoubtedly grown even bigger. A little way down the slope was a small knoll; here and there a crooked tombstone protruded from the long grass. The knoll top was free of the brambles and saplings that were slowly choking the rest of the open land, and Elizabeth realized that family members must come once a year to mow and trim around the graves. Indeed, she could see a few wreaths of plastic flowers leaning drunkenly amid the grass.

Rosemary laid one hand on the trunk of the big maple. “We spied on Maythorn’s Uncle Mike and Tamra’s mother from up there. She worked for the Mullins as a maid or something, and she’d sneak off when Mrs. Barbie was away. They used to meet in the old cemetery down there and…kiss…and paw at each other.” She glanced at Elizabeth then quickly looked away, a blush rising on her cheeks.

“Was that in your notebook or are you just now remembering it?” Phillip asked.

“In the notebook. What little toads we were!”

They walked on, through the old family cemetery, where the rough gravestones bore dates from the 1800s to as recent as 1978. The family name on most of the stones was “Ridder.”

Below the knoll lay the tennis court and, to the right, the swimming pool and gazebo. Rosemary stared at the empty pool with a faraway look and said, “Once, when I was spending the night with Maythorn, I woke up because the moon was bright and it was shining on my face. I went to the window and looked out.”

She leaned on her stick, her gaze fixed on the pool. “Down there, on one of the chaise longues, there were two naked people. I knew what they were doing and I knew that one was Mrs. Barbie. And I was almost positive that the other one was Mike…or Jared.”

Elizabeth started to speak but stopped herself.
Poor Rosie—what a terrible example all of the adults in her life seem to have set. No wonder she’s been in no hurry for a relationship.

“Sure it wasn’t Moon?” Phillip asked. “From that picture I saw on the Christmas card, all three of them were similar in looks.”

“Not Moon.” Rosemary’s voice was definite. “He was out of town; I remember that.”

“What about Maythorn?” Elizabeth asked. “Did she see them too?”

“Maythorn was asleep. And I never told her. She wouldn’t have believed me.”

“Really?” Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. “That surprises me. I never had the impression that there was that much love between Maythorn and Patricia.”

“Me either. I always thought Mrs. Barbie was more like Maythorn’s wicked stepmother than a real mother. But Maythorn didn’t see it that way.” Rosemary stabbed her hiking stick into the hard-packed earth. The faraway look was in her eyes once more.

“There was one time…I remember it was really hot and Maythorn had called to see if I wanted to go swimming. I was coming down the path, and as I got near the gazebo, I could hear Mrs. Barbie in there. She was yelling at Maythorn and saying horrible, awful, mean things. And then I heard a sound like a slap and saw Mrs. Barbie hurrying away to the house. Her high heels went
click-click-click
and then the door slammed.

“When I got to the gazebo, I could tell Maythorn had been crying and there was the red imprint of a hand on her face. But when I said something to her about it…” Rosemary looked pained. “Something like ‘I think your mother’s mean,’ Maythorn got all mad with me. For
spying
on her. She denied entirely that Patricia had slapped her.”