Thrilled with that plan, I’m hustling even faster towards the creek stepping stones when I hear, “Where’re ya goin’?” coming from somewhere out in front of me.
I think that Lou Jackson is talking to me and I’m getting ready to answer her back until I hear my uncle say, “It’s over.”
I douse my flashlight.
The Carmody brothers have got the same booming voice, but Uncle Blackie laughs like I imagine Satan does, that’s how I know it’s him and not Papa. He’s informing Lou that the romance has drawn to an end. He’s fixing to toss her into the trash just like I warned her he would. Just like he has so many other gals who fell under his spell, including Dagmar Epps, the bad-moraled lady who lives up at the hobo camp. They were an item for almost a year and look at her now.
“But, I… I…,” Lou whines. “Ya can’t mean it. Don’t ya want… I got something real nice for ya. Lookee here.”
I peek around the tree that I’ve hidden behind. They’re only about fifty feet away, but I can’t see them clearly until the lightning strikes again. Lou is being pressed up against the side of the gardening shed by Blackie, who is handsome just like Papa, but his dark hair is wilder looking. He’s got a tattoo on his muscular arm of a lady whose bosom is barely covered by two horseshoes, and his chest bulges, too.
Lou’s blouse is all the way unbuttoned and her brassiere up around her neck. Blackie is smiling down at her pointed cookie cone chest. “I told you this right off. When I say the party’s over, it’s over, but I guess there’s nothin’ wrong with one for the road.”
Lou’s moans come out of the darkness, low and long. When the lightning comes again, I see that Blackie has slid his hand up under her skirt. He’s moving it back and forth like a saw. Lou is moving back and forth, too, until my uncle does something down there that makes her give out a choked scream.
As furious as she makes me, my heart is going out to her. Until the flame from Blackie’s Zippo lighter illuminates Mama’s watch on her wrist when he lights up a Lucky Strike. The flash of silver catches my uncle’s eye, too. “Where’d you get this?” Ripping it off, he holds the watch out of her reach. When Lou jumps for it, he smacks her away. “I’ve never seen this before. Did you steal it, girl? Answer me.” When she doesn’t, he pinches her real hard on the arm.
“It’s… Shen’s,” Lou wails.
“What’d ya say?” I know that Blackie heard her because even though the treetops are swishing and thunder is rolling closer, I’m having no trouble at all picking up on his belittling tone.
Lou cries, “Give it back. It’s Shenny’s.”
“Where’d that brat get something this fine?”
“I… I don’t know,” Louise says, but if I could see her I know she’d be raising her lying right eyebrow. I told her I found Mama’s watch near the old well when we were still getting along.
Blackie says, “Looks fancy. Not for a kid. You sure this watch doesn’t belong to daaarlin’ Evelyn?” I can hear the leer in his voice. He likes Mama, and not in a relative way. He was always putting his hand on her caboose and giving it a goose and didn’t care that Papa saw.
Letting go of Lou, my uncle tucks his shirt back into his pants and says, “I’ll just take the watch and return it to Walter.”
That would be disastrous if my uncle was a man of his word. I know him too good. He’ll keep it and give it to his next Kleenex gal.
“His Honor didn’t gift it to the girls’ mother so there’s no need to return it to him.” Lou is sobbing so hard that she’s begun hiccupping. “Please…
How does she know that somebody else besides Papa gave Mama the watch? I wasn’t the one who told her. Woody can’t.
“What do you mean Walt
“Blackie, please,” Lou says, not mad but like that girl in the patched dress who got off the Greyhound bus.
“Did Evie have a back-door lover?” My uncle sounds frantic. “Did she?”
I want to stop all this before something even worse happens, but if I dare to interfere, my uncle will drag me up to the house and shout at Papa, “Look who I found stickin’ her nose where it don’t belong again.”
Thankfully, Mr. Cole Jackson opens up the door to their cottage and thrusts out his head.
“Louise, honey? The storm’s startin’ up. Better finish up what you’re doin’.” A crack of lightning finishes his sentence off like an exclamation point. “Lou? Ya out there?”
I want to shout, “Come quick, Mr. Cole,” but I know that would only make things worse. I think of them as family, but the Jacksons are the help. If they try to go up against the Carmodys, my grandfather will make sure nobody else in town hires them once they get kicked off of Lilyfield.
After Mr. Cole steps back into the cottage, Uncle Blackie says to Lou so sickening, “Thanks for the hospitality. Take care now, ya hear?” and struts off into the woods.
I hate that.
Despise it when somebody strong takes advantage of the weak, but what can I do? Nobody, not even the meanest man I know-Grampa-would want to tangle with my uncle when he gets to acting like the cock of the walk.
I’m going to drag Lou out of this storm and back into the cottage. Mr. Cole will set out dry clothes and heat a cup of milk with a splash of brandy. When she falls asleep, I’ll snip a bit off her hair and take it up to Miss Hormel at the boardinghouse tomorrow. I’ll pay her to give Lou that hump. That may sound mean, but it really is for the best. Lou’ll get tempted to take up with him again if Blackie comes scratching at her window one of these nights because she is conveniently located. She’ll get her heart broken all over again. Of course, I’m mad at her for letting my uncle take Mama’s watch, but it’ll be easy to get back. Blackie will pass out tonight, probably on the front porch swing. I’ll sneak it out of his pocket then. He won’t even remember when he wakes up tomorrow morning that he took it off Lou, that’s how hanged over he’ll be.
I switch my flashlight back on and start heading towards the shed, but before I get even a few steps, from behind me, a hand clamps over my mouth and drags me back behind the tree. I have visions of that hugging hobo, or maybe it’s Blackie. He must’ve seen me watching him being so mean to Louise. I hunch up, listening for his snide
It’s not a wandering hobo or my disgusting uncle that’s got his arms around me.
It’s Papa.
He doesn’t shout something vile or twist me around in disgust. He doesn’t push me to the ground and tower over me yelling. He’s not even slurring when he says in his kindest of all voices, the one I still hear in my dreams, “Shenandoah? Is that you?” When I don’t turn to show him my gaping teeth the way I usually do to let him know it’s me, he assumes I’m my sister. “Jane Woodrow. I was just at the fort looking for you.”
Thank Jesus I gave Woody that sleeping pill.
I feel ashamed of myself for needing him so much that I don’t tell him that it’s me and not my twin. I can’t help myself. I want him to keep holding me. Maybe he’s come to apologize, to beg forgiveness for the way he’s been treating his precious girls. I can feel myself melting into him.
Papa says, “All this time… I… I haven’t been sure if it was you or Shenandoah I saw that night watching from up in the fort, but Doc Keller told me earlier this evening that he’s almost certain it was you, and my father… your grandfather… he agrees. He wants me to send you away.” His Honor sounds like a scared little kid. “I’ve been hoping this would all sort itself out, but it’s only gotten worse. It
