As soon as news spread around Red River about Eddie rescuing Beanie, he became the town hero. Men slapped him on the back to congratulate him. Women apologized that they didn’t have sugar enough to make him a cake.
Eddie didn’t have any problem telling and retelling his story of finding my sister, her carrying on in the ditch, tangled in the rusty barbed wire. How he did his best to calm her as he pulled the barbs away from her flesh. How she’d held on tight when he lifted her. That out of the corner of his eye he saw a man running west down the railroad tracks.
A Negro man, he claimed. Though I didn’t know how he could have been able to tell that, what with how dark that night had been.
Each time he told the story, it got fatter, thick with added details to make it more of a drama. He heard a rattler down in that ditch and feared it would bite him. A coyote howled in the distance. How he had stumbled as he carried her, but pulled together all his strength to keep from dropping her.
Wherever he went, a group of men and boys stood around to hear him tell the story. I was about sick of hearing his voice.
Meemaw told me that a hopeless people are always in the market for a hero. “Just remember King Saul,” she’d said.
All I could remember of King Saul from the Bible was that he was a head taller than everybody else. Eddie, though, was a head shorter.
Nobody in Red River seemed to care so much about that.
“I just wish the newspaper was still running,” Millard had said. “Eddie deserves a front page for what he done.”
Best they could do was have a picture of Eddie made to hang in the courthouse right next to the newspaper clipping of the shooting of Jimmy DuPre.
Folks in town wanted Daddy to find the maniac who had attacked Beanie. He went around, door-to-door, tent-to-tent, asking after anybody who had seen anything the night of the attack. No one had.
He’d even asked my sister to go over what had happened. She never did come up with the words to explain it. All she kept saying was that she couldn’t see anything that night. She repeated that it was too dark, and there were no stars. The one thing she did remember was that someone or something had hit her real hard on the back of the head.
Then she’d end up crying until she dropped off into a deep sleep. She wouldn’t wake up again for hours.
“Eddie says he saw a Negro running away,” Mama said after another day of wondering and Beanie’s crying.
“Eddie isn’t exactly the ideal witness.” Daddy stood. “I like the guy, but I can’t go and arrest the first black man I see just cause Eddie said so.”
“But Eddie saved her,” Mama said. “Why would he lie?”
“The way I see it, God’s the one who saved her, Mary,” Daddy answered back. “I know I’m not a church-going man, but I believe it. Eddie just happened to be in the area at the moment. And I ain’t saying he lied. Just saying he might not have seen what he says he did.”
But the good folks of Red River wanted a man to pay for what had happened to Beanie. Daddy could barely step off our porch without somebody talking to him about a colored man they’d seen in the Hooverville or walking through the town. I even heard one man talk about a “good, old-fashioned lynching.”
“It’s our right to keep this town safe,” the man had said.
“Leave it to me,” Daddy had told him. “Don’t go hanging anybody on account of my family. I won’t have it.”
Two weeks until Christmas and no peace on earth to be found.
On weekdays, either Daddy or Millard would walk me to and from the schoolhouse, holding my hand. “Just in case” was what they said. Whenever I asked to walk to Ray’s house, Mama said I shouldn’t. Even sitting on the porch by myself sent Mama and Meemaw into a tizzy.
Things were too dangerous, they believed. They were thinking of how to best protect me from whoever might hurt me.
Most of the time, I just sat on the davenport, reading my fairy-tale book over and again, wishing Ray would come to visit. I even would have been happy if Beanie sat with me.
It was a lonely time.
At night, Mama set up a bed on the davenport for me. She said she wasn’t sure when I’d be up in my room again. Beanie had nightmares most nights, kicking and hitting in her sleep. I didn’t mind sleeping in the living room all that much, really.
One night I woke up when it was still dark out. I sat up, forgetting where I was. The book I’d fallen asleep reading fell to the floor with a bang. Peeking at the clock, I could just barely see that it was too early in the morning to be awake. I nestled back down on my pillow and pulled the blanket up to my chin.
Yawning, I closed my eyes, trying to put all extra thoughts out of my head so I could fall off to sleep.
The scratching of a match strike made me open my eyes. Flame touched the end of a cigarette and it turned orange then faded.
“Daddy?” I whispered.
“Nope,” the man answered from across the room.
I knew that voice too well.
I sat up, scrambling to the end of the couch farthest from him and pulled the blanket up over myself again.
Eddie sat in Daddy’s chair, smoke puffing out of his mouth.
“Did I wake you up?” he asked.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to cover up the fear in my voice. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Says who?” He puffed on his cigarette again. “I would’ve thought you’d be happy to see me.”
“It’s the middle of the night. You shouldn’t be here.”
“You’re afraid of me.” He stood up and walked around the room. “You don’t gotta be afraid of me.”
“Am not.” I pretended to be brave even though I was scared down to my toes.
“Nah, I know you are.” He smirked at me. “I can see it in your eyes.”
He turned and looked at the picture of President Roosevelt.
“You probably should be afraid of me. You don’t know nothing about me.” He thumped a knuckle on the portrait. “Dangerous men are everywhere.”
Reaching down, I felt for Mama’s mending basket. She hadn’t touched it since Beanie got hurt, but it still sat under the davenport. While Eddie’s back was turned, I grabbed the long bladed shears. I sat up, hiding them under the blanket.
“Winnie told me she and you talked,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at me. If he noticed that I flinched, he didn’t let on. “I don’t expect she got to tell you everything she had on her mind.”
“That’s none of your business,” I said, slipping my fingers into the handle of the shears.
Eddie pushed his hands into the back pockets of his pants and turned toward me.
“You sure got a mouth on you, you know that?” He winked. “I do believe Mary would smack you silly if she heard you talking to an adult like that.”
“You ought to call her Mrs. Spence.”
“See what I mean? Mouthy.”
I glared at him, hoping he’d see how much I hated him.
“I never said I didn’t like a sassy girl, did I?” he asked.
He stepped closer to me, so close I could have swung the shears at him or jabbed them into his side. He would have screamed, I just knew it. Would have cussed so loud everybody in the house would wake up and come out to help me.
But he turned and walked past me to Meemaw’s rocking chair. The wood crackled under his weight, even though he couldn’t have been any heavier than Meemaw.
“Winnie told me she’s fixing to change a few things. She said she don’t wanna live in the cat house no more.” He leaned forward, the chair rocking with him. “She said you shamed her.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do.”
“I didn’t do anything to her,” I said.
“She told me she wants you to be proud of her.” He rocked back and let out a quiet chuckle. “A thing like that.”
“I don’t know why she cares. I hardly know her.”
“Oh, but she sure knows you. She’s been watching you grow up all these years.” He stubbed out his cigarette in Daddy’s ash tray. “She never dared talk to you before, though. Too scared about what would happen to her if she did. Besides, she didn’t want any bad to come to you.”
“Why would something happen to me?”
“Isn’t that the question of the hour.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. Opening his mouth, he smacked his tongue against his lips. “You know, I sure am thirsty. I’d like me a glass of water. Or hooch, if you got that sort of thing around.”
He sat, rocking his chair back and forth and smirking at me, waiting.
“We don’t keep booze in this house,” I said.
“Water’s just fine.” He laced his fingers together over top of his flat belly.
“I’m not getting you anything,” I said, lifting the side of my lip into a snarl.
“Well, that ain’t so neighborly of you.”
“You aren’t my neighbor.”
“Ah, I would’ve thought you knew your Bible better than that.” He tsked at me. “Didn’t Jesus say everybody’s your neighbor?”
I couldn’t think of a single thing Pastor had ever preached about how to protect myself against an evil man in my living room demanding water or liquor. So I didn’t say anything at all about it.
“What’s her name?” he asked after a long time of quiet.
“Who? Winnie?”
“No. I know her. Believe me, I know her. Winnie was darn near my sister-in-law.” He shook his head. “Nah, I mean the idiot girl. The one I rescued.”
“She isn’t an idiot.”
“Right. You said that before.” He sighed. “But you know who I’m talking about.”
“Her name is Violet Jean,” I said, my sister’s real name feeling weird coming out of my mouth. He didn’t deserve to know the name we all called her.
No matter what he thought, he wasn’t one of us.
“Yeah, Violet Jean. You know, old Violet Jean was crying like a pig in that ditch. Just rolling around in the dirt, making all kinds of weird noises.” He shook his head. “She ain’t right. Probably would’ve been better for her if I’d left her there.”
“Why did you help her?” I made sure I had a good hold on those shears. “Why didn’t you just walk on by?”
“Now, that’s a question I would’ve expected the sheriff to ask.” He scratched his scalp. “The right answer is that I helped her because it’s the decent thing for a man to do.”
“What’s the real answer?” I asked.
The rocking chair didn’t make a sound as he got up. Before I had time to think, he was face-to-face with me, his thumb and finger lifting my chin. I was so scared, I couldn’t find the strength to push the shears into him.
“You and me, we’re alike, you know.” His whispered words stunk of rot. “You ain’t such a goody-goody, are you? You’ve got dark thoughts and bad dreams. Just like me.”
He pressed his lips hard against my forehead. They left a moist spot there that I thought for sure I’d never be able to wash off.
“I never did help that idiot girl.” He lowered his face so we were eye to eye. “Fact is, I just happened to be in the area at just the right time.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think that means?”
I didn’t know but was too afraid to say another word.
“You tell anybody I was here, and I’ll tell them you’re lying,” he said, his face still too close to mine. “This was nothing more than a dream.”
Then he was gone.
Somehow I managed to fall asleep after Eddie left. It was a fast and shallow sleep. One that didn’t give dreams or even rest.
I woke more exhausted than the night before.
Bubbling coffee sounds and the warm aroma of oatmeal floated out of the kitchen, along with Mama’s humming of Christmas carols.
“Mama?” I called out, weak and quiet. I didn’t reckon she would hear me, so I took in a good breath and called out again.
“You up?” she asked from the kitchen. “Was I making too much noise? I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I shook my head no.
Mama set the table with bowls and water glasses. Smiling at me, she stood up straight.
“Your hair needs a good brushing,” she said. “I can braid it for you if you like. Later, though. Maybe after breakfast.”
She turned back to the kitchen and took a stack of cotton napkins from the drawer.
“Mama.” That time my voice came through loud enough that she turned.
“Yes, darlin’?” Her forehead wrinkled, and one of her eyebrows raised.
“I’ve got to tell you something,” I said. “And I don’t want you to be mad at me.”
“Why would I be mad?” She put a fist on her hip. “Did you do something?”
“No.” I swallowed hard, but nothing went down but dry. “Eddie was here last night.”
“What was that?” She tilted her head.
I told her what I’d said.
“He never was here yesterday.” She turned to the table and put the napkins beside the bowls.
“Everybody was asleep. I woke up and he was sitting right in Daddy’s chair.” I cleared my throat. “He was smoking.”
“You were just dreaming, Pearl.”
“I wasn’t. It was real.”
“Don’t you think Daddy and I would have known he was here?” She walked to the drawer for some spoons. “We would have heard him.”
I wondered why they hadn’t heard him. A flicker of doubt lit in my mind. Maybe it had just been a dream. I touched the place where he’d pressed his lips, wishing it hadn’t been real.
“Eddie scares me, Mama.” My eyelids fluttered, tears coming quicker than I could blink them away. “I don’t think he’s good.”
“Pearl, darlin’, he’s not bad. He saved Beanie, remember?” She turned back to the kitchen, and I heard her moving a pot around on top of the stove. “If he wasn’t good, he wouldn’t have helped her.”
“Mama, he knew my name.”
“Because we told it to him,” she said.
“No, Mama. He knew it right when he got off the train.” I wiped my nose.
“When he got off the train? He said he walked here.”
“He lied.”
“Pearl Louise,” she scolded. “It’s not nice to make accusations.”
“Remember the rabbit drive? The one I went to? When I went to find Beanie?”
She nodded. “I remember.”
“He smashed a rabbit right in my face.” My voice shook and I couldn’t help it. “Remember the blood on me?”
“Pearl.”
“He’s everywhere, Mama.”
“You must have dreamed it all. He hasn’t been around for months. He even said so.” She carried the pot of oatmeal to the table, balancing it on the edge as she ladled runny spoonfuls into the bowls. “You have got to stop reading so much. It’s spoiling your mind.”
“Mama, he’s bad.”
“He is not,” she said, her voice raised and hard. “He saved your sister.”
“He told me she was crying like a pig.”
“Why in the world would you say something like that?” She frowned at me. “What a terrible thing to say about your sister.”
“Winnie told me that Eddie was a bad man!” I yelled the words. Yelled them as loud as I could.
Mama jolted, losing her hold on the pot. It toppled and she jumped back just in time for the slop of hot oats to miss her feet and splatter on the floor.
She looked at the mess and then at me. She sobbed.
“How many times have I told you to stay away from That Woman?” Her body jerked with the crying. “Don’t you understand? I want to protect you. How can I protect you if you won’t do as I say?”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, still under the blanket. “I should have listened to you.”
She turned her eyes back to the oatmeal.
“You’re right,” I said. “It was all a dream. I imagined all of it. Everything was make-believe.”
Pulling on the edge of her apron, she brought it to her eyes and wiped under them.
“I never wanted you to get hurt,” she whimpered.
“I’m not hurt, Mama.” I pushed the blanket off my lap. “Dreams don’t hurt me. It was all just a dream.”
I stood up. The shears fell to the floor with a clatter.
Mama and I never did talk about Eddie or Winnie or jackrabbits again.
We cleaned up the oatmeal without a sound between us. She did keep an eye on me the whole time. From then on, she watched me. Her lips weren’t as ready to smile at my wonderings anymore. Her gaze seemed heavy on me, like she was trying to hold me down.
I knew she meant to protect me, but from what I didn’t know.
She made me sleep in bed with Beanie again, even if I did get kicked all night long.
I stopped telling Daddy about my nightmares, even though I’d never had so many. And never before had they been so dark.
It was truly a very lonely time.