The sheriff sighed. “When you call His Honor, you tell him that I’m beginning a thorough investigation into everything that’s happened here, and that I will no longer be taking the tender ages and clean records of those involved into consideration. So everybody here better get their stories straight and tell the mayor, his boy, and his boy’s cousin to do the same. I’m taking statements at the first of the week, and this time, anybody determined to be lying or withholding facts will be looking at a charge of obstruction. And that goes for any eleven-year-old spitfires who’ve been keeping entirely too much information to themselves,” he said, aiming that last part directly at me.
Then he pointed at the boy. “And you, young man. You make sure I get your name and address.”
For a second nobody moved.
“Well, go on now, get!” he barked, “before I haul in the lot of you for trespassing, reckless endangerment, ruining my turkey dinner, and whatever else applies.”
Everyone did as the sheriff asked, Maud reluctantly adding her shotgun to the deputy’s growing arsenal. Henry climbed the hill to have a word with Maud. I turned back to the boy and the deer. My eyes moved to the bow peeking out of that canvas bag on the ground inside the fence, a bow nobody else seemed to have seen. The sun was sinking down behind the trees, taking the light with it. When Henry started back down the hill, I ran to meet him, wanting to give the boy a chance to calm the deer and get away if he could.
“Who is that boy, Zoë?” Henry asked right off. He spun me around and gave me a thorough look-see to make sure I was all right. I turned as slowly as I could.
“I’m as curious as anybody,” I said. “First I ever saw of him was today.”
Henry stayed quiet, studying me, as if he was trying to decide whether he believed me or not. “After dinner,” he said finally, “the two of us are going to talk.”
I heard the sound of a lone owl’s hooting behind me then, and turned to see the gate open, the graveyard empty, the boy and the deer gone.
14
Manny used to drink at a hole-in-the-wall bar called Andy’s, owned by a man of the same name. It had four or five vinyl-covered booths, and every night at six o’clock Andy would dim the lights, clip on a black bow tie, and turn Andy’s into André’s, where everything cost a dollar more. I thought about Andy’s during what was left of Thanksgiving Day, because after what had happened outside, everything and everybody looked different to me.
Maybe it was the candles Helen lighted on the “table” Henry had put together earlier from three sawhorses and a piece of plywood covered by two bedsheets. Or maybe it was the mismatched plates and utensils Bessie set out—“orphans,” she called them, like me. She and Helen speculated about their previous owners while they shifted and fiddled and fussed with the arrangement like they were making high art. Maud Booker ran home for an extra place setting of silverware while Franklin made place cards by writing our names on little paper parasols he found in a kitchen drawer. He even made one for Mr. C’mere and stuck it in his cat-food bowl on the porch. The finished table was beautiful like a crazy quilt and looked as sundry as our group: fine china right next to chipped everyday, crystal wineglasses next to jelly jars with ducks on them; forks, knives, and spoons with every manner of handle; and Bessie’s mama’s lace-trimmed cloth napkins beside Henry’s multicolored bandannas from the hardware store.
Everybody was talking about what had happened, and about the boy, asking if anyone else knew him or if they’d seen the white deer before. Bessie said that, much as she hated to say it, those migrant children all looked alike to her and we had no shortage of them in Sugar Hill. Maud said the deer looked considerably less than a year old, which was likely why nobody had sighted her till now. And the Padre said that if either one of them lived nearby, neither one was a churchgoer.
Bessie shooed Harlan upstairs, insisting he make bosom friends with a washcloth and a bar of soap before joining our table. Harlan seemed more beaten down than ever before, full of shame, and his expression begged forgiveness for things I didn’t even know. I heard both the shower and the tub running, and Helen dropped his old clothes down the stairwell. They about stood up on their own. She plucked up each stinky item between two fingers and carried it at arm’s length past the washer and out to the trash, then sent Henry upstairs to find something for Harlan to wear.
Harlan came down scrubbed raw and wearing some of Henry’s cleaner clothes, which is to say they’d been through the wash and didn’t have too many grease stains or burn holes in them. With his wet hair slicked back, he looked like Andy after he’d put on his bow tie and become André—both the old Harlan and the new improved version at the same time. Being clean seemed to lift his spirits. I couldn’t say it was good to see him, because of the memories he brought back of Mama, but he’d scrubbed off most of his shamefaced look with the stink and dirt, and I found I didn’t mind his being here so much.
I spied Maud outside sweet-talking Mr. C’mere, who was regarding her from the far side of the porch—a good thing, because he reeked of Harlan’s stinky car. I went out to thank her for standing up for the white deer. She was hunkered down, telling Mr. C what a handsome devil he was, and his tail was swishing back and forth like he was eating up
