August 12, 1978, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Sally Beth woke early, feeling a little hung over and saddened by what she had seen during the night. Lilly still slept, but Edna Mae was up and dressed in cutoff jeans and a tank top. Her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and her face shone with scrubbing. She sat on a chair tying her tennis shoes, and even in the awkward, bent-over position, she looked stunning.
“Hey,” said Sally Beth, rubbing her eyes.
“Hey. There’s a gym next door, so I’m going to go work out. Why don’t you come with me?” She paused to study Lilly briefly. “Lilly ought to come, too.”
Sally Beth had not been in a gym since high school, and she was not anxious to go back to smelly locker rooms and shouting boys. “What do you do there?”
Edna Mae laughed. “Gotta stay in shape, and you should, too. Come on, I need to teach you how to take care of yourself. Lilly! Get up. I’m going to show you how to handle men who think they can bully you.”
Lilly moaned from under the covers. Sally Beth felt a tremor of apprehension. “You mean, beat them up? No Edna Mae, we’re Quakers. We don’t fight. It’s against our beliefs.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that! You don’t have to hurt anybody. You just learn how to repel somebody who wants to hurt you. Like that guy last night. I didn’t hurt him. I just showed him I won’t be pushed around. It’s not fighting. It’s self-defense. It’s perfect for you.”
Sally Beth wasn’t convinced. She looked askance until Edna Mae spoke again. “Do you know this kind of self-defense was invented by priests who were absolute pacifists? Bandits and murderers used to come and raid their temples, and they got tired of being robbed and raped and murdered, so they developed this style of defense to protect themselves without hurting their attackers.”
Sally Beth thought about that. Edna Mae had thrown the man to the floor last night, but he had not appeared to be hurt, and she had thrown Lawrence into the pool when he had tried to push her in. She also had dragged him away from Lilly when he threatened to push her off the Canyon rim.
“You sure they don’t get hurt?”
“Did he look hurt?”
“No,” broke in Lilly. “He just looked mad. You could have hurt him, though. Standing on his windpipe like that.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t. Most of the moves are evasive and non-confrontational. You just learn to side step and make an attacker go off balance. Come here, Sally Beth, I’ll show you.” She jumped up on the bed. “Come on! You’ll see. It won’t hurt a bit. Come up here on the bed.”
Sally Beth reluctantly climbed up beside Edna Mae. “Okay, now come at me like you’re going to choke me.” She bounced a little on the bed, moving her shoulders like a boxer.
Sally Beth tentatively put her hands forward, and before she even touched Edna Mae, she found herself flat on the bed with Edna Mae’s tennis shoe resting lightly on her throat. “See? You didn’t feel a thing, did you?” She bounced back and pulled Sally Beth up on her feet. “Do it again. This time try to hurt me.”
Sally Beth knew hurting Edna Mae was not likely to happen. She halfheartedly lunged for her, but again, she ended up on her back, looking up at Edna Mae’s perfect leg.
“Come on, Lilly. You get in on this. I know. Both of you get dressed and let’s go outside, and I’ll show you how easy you can throw somebody, and you won’t even hurt them.”
Lilly jumped up enthusiastically and began throwing on her clothes. Sally Beth wasn’t so sure. She pulled on shorts and a T-shirt, but she wasn’t certain that she should be taking part in this. Fighting was fighting, and this sure looked like fighting to her.
They moved to the dew-laden grass outside. “Okay, now both of you rush at me like you’re going to grab me or stab me or something. Lilly and Sally Beth looked at each other, and Lilly started to giggle. This wasn’t much different from what they had done as girls when they wrestled with each other and their cousins. Maybe it wouldn’t be so wrong after all. They rushed in toward Edna Mae, who sidestepped them easily. She swept her foot under Lilly, who stumbled and fell, and then she grabbed Sally Beth around the waist and flipped her so gently that she found herself lying on the grass, unhurt and unruffled.
“Did that hurt?” asked Edna Mae.
“No…” mused Sally Beth from the ground.
Lilly jumped up. “Not a bit! How do you do that?”
“Come on, let’s go down to the gym and I’ll show you.” She pulled Sally Beth up and returned to the room briefly to get her University of Texas sweatshirt, pulling it over her head as she trotted into the parking lot. Twenty minutes later, she was showing the sisters how to use the weight of an opponent against him.
It was surprisingly fun and fairly easy to catch on to the basics. Within an hour, both Sally Beth and Lilly were able to throw not only each other, but Edna Mae as well. Laughing, they agreed that the time might come again when they needed to know how to be as tough as Edna Mae. Sally Beth hoped it never came to that, but it did feel kind of good to know she was stronger than she realized. By the time they had showered and changed and had sat down to breakfast, she felt that she was standing just a little taller.
Swallowtail Gap, West Virginia
“Hey, Chap! Slow down!” Geneva called to her husband. “Blue says he doesn’t like being jostled so much.”
Howard halted his horse and drew up the packhorse he was leading beside him. “Sorry, darlin’,” he said, looking back. “Why don’t you let me take him the rest of the way up?”
“No, I don’t trust Lightening. He may try to throw you just for spite, and you have your hands full. I can manage okay.”
“Maybe I’ll go on up ahead? I can get some firewood in and pick some dinner from the garden, and you can take your time.”
She shifted in the saddle, nodding. “Yes, go on. I’ll take it easy the rest of the way.”
Howard nudged his stallion into a fast trot, leaving Geneva alone with her baby and her thoughts. It had been a year since she had been to this cabin. She remembered the night she and Howard had first loved each other, with the sound of the waterfall thundering in their ears, the smell of mint and the wild, summer night. Her heart pounded just remembering, and she felt the familiar, sweet, melting sensation when she thought about how Blue was the result of that night. What kind of divine intercession had occurred, sending that thunderstorm and her illness? Had that storm not come, she would have turned her back on Howard and taken a different path, and the thought made her shudder with dread. She closed her eyes, smiling. God had used her foolishness and wantonness and turned it to good. She breathed a prayer of thanks and nudged April forward.
When she arrived at the cabin, Howard had already nearly unpacked their supplies. He stopped to help her down from her horse before lifting Blue from her back. “I see he made it okay,” he said, smiling into his son’s face. “That’s about the most even-tempered young’un I ever did see.”
Geneva smirked at him. “Blue got my sweet temper.”
Howard’s eyes laughed at her, but he said nothing as she unbundled the baby and carried him inside while he finished the unpacking. He took the horses to the stable, then pulled vegetables from the garden, and went out to shoot some game for supper while Geneva washed and cut up potatoes and made a little relish out of onions, cucumbers, and the two ripe tomatoes they had found. Blue stared at her with his bright blue eyes as she hummed while she worked, contented. The honeymoon in Europe had been nice, but this was home.
After supper, they built up the fire outside, and like they had just a year ago, they filled the zinc washtub with water and placed it over the coals. First they bathed Blue, then Howard said, “The last time you took a bath here, I didn’t get to watch. But you watched me…” He settled himself on the porch step and leaned back on his elbows. “Now it’s my turn.”
Geneva blushed, remembering how beautiful he had been, standing on the cliff above the creek, holding himself still and calm, then plunging into the water, how she had been unable to move, how he had risen from the water and they had discovered each other. The memory made her want to strip for him, but although she attempted a little seductive dance, she soon began to giggle from embarrassment, and ended up just tearing her clothes off quickly and lowering herself into the tub.
He shook his head with mock disgust, sighing. “I think you could’ve done a little better than that. I might as well go on over to the creek. Not much of a show tonight.” He pretended indifference, but his eyes lingered on her as he made his way down the path.
Somewhere near the Texas Border
To Sally Beth’s dismay, both Lilly and Edna Mae had refused to stop for Carlsbad Caverns on the grounds that “bats bite and get tangled up in your hair,” and closed spaces gave Edna Mae the heebie jeebies. They did agree to take the back road from Albuquerque so she could at least see White Sands, which finally quenched her desire to see a “real” desert, with towering, undulating dunes of pure white sand. Other than that, the road between Albuquerque and Pecos was a long, dry, hot stretch. Yet, the uninspired scenery soon took an unnoticed position behind the comfortable space made up of music, feminine talk, and laughter. Lilly proved to be even more obtrusive than Lawrence had been with the camera, sticking the lens right up into Sally Beth’s and Edna Mae’s faces and constantly telling them to look that way or smile or make a face until Sally Beth started mugging and positioning Edna Mae into sidesplitting poses.
At one stop, Edna Mae talked them into mooning for a shot. “Come on!” she laughed. “Nobody will ever know it’s us if we don’t show our faces.” She instructed Lilly to place the camera on the front seat of the car and set the timer, then laughing uncontrollably, they pulled down their panties and sat on the hood of the car, mashing their bare bottoms against the windshield. By the time the camera clicked, they were howling, and then they rolled off the car and onto the sand, hysterical. A car drove by slowly, its occupants staring at them, which made them laugh even harder. Sally Beth had forgotten how much fun pure silliness could be.
By dinnertime, they had nearly made it to the Texas border, but there was little to offer in the way of food or respite. They drove a long time on a deserted road before they finally found a decent-looking place offering Mexican food.
“It’s a half-hour wait for a table,” Edna Mae informed them after she had talked to the hostess. “Let’s sit at the bar.” She led them through the throng waiting at the doorway and moved a couple of barstools around so they could sit together.
Lilly perched on her seat as she picked up a menu. “Oh look! They’ve got a special on pitchers of margaritas. Let’s get one.”
“Lilly, we were drinking last night,” warned Sally Beth. “We shouldn’t get in the habit of doing this.”
“Come on, Sally Beth. Once we get home, we can’t kick up our heels like this.”
Sally Beth was about to declare that she’d had enough heel-kicking, but then she looked at her sister’s face and saw it more relaxed and happy than she had seen it in a very long time. The old, pinched look she had worn for years, ever since Daddy had gotten so sick, was gone. A pitcher of margaritas was not worth arguing about, not when she, Lilly, and Edna Mae were on the adventure of a lifetime. “Okay,” she conceded, “but just one.”
“They’re not that strong when it’s the special,” soothed Edna Mae. “You’ll hardly feel it. And I bet they know how to make them here.” She settled happily on the bar stool and hiked up the neck of her muumuu.
Somehow, a full pitcher of margaritas managed to disappear before they even ordered food, although Sally Beth limited herself to one glass. Lilly, too, seemed to be a little more careful. Edna Mae was not. She drank with abandon, and ate with equal gusto. It was remarkable how much she was able to put away.
“So how did you learn judo, Edna Mae?” asked Lilly as she put a dollop of sour cream on her third taco.
“And why?” added Sally Beth.
Edna Mae grew thoughtful. “It comes with the territory. I started having to fight guys off when I was in the fifth grade.” She splayed both hands across her chest, making a wry face.
“Oh. That’s tough. I didn’t get boobs until I was fourteen, and they were pretty little for a long time. Both of us were still climbing trees and playing in the creek when we were eleven.”
“I envy you two. I had to give up running when I was ten; they were so sore from growing so fast. It was too bad, because I had been athletic as a kid. My dad taught me to play baseball, and I was real good at it. But these monsters got in the way.”
“Daddy taught us to play baseball, too. Lilly was really good at it.”
“I bet you two had a good daddy,” Edna Mae said wistfully. “I had a good daddy, too. He didn’t get a boy, so he taught me all those boy things like fishing and baseball and fixing stuff around the house, and he was funny! He could make me laugh without even saying anything.” She looked into her margarita with melancholy eyes that suddenly misted with tears. “But he died when I was ten. Worst thing that ever happened to me.”
Sally Beth and Lilly fell silent while she continued, “My stupid mama took up with the biggest pervert you ever met just a few months later, and he hadn’t been in the house any time before he started trying to feel me up.” Her face tightened.
“Oh, Lord,” said Lilly. “What did you do?”
“I got my friend Sammy Johnson to teach me how to fight. Sammy was this real cool black dude who carried a knife and would cut anybody who tried anything on his little sister. I told him about Clyde, and he took me under his wing. His sister was the same age as me, and we hung out together, and I guess he just felt sorry for me.
“I try to fight clean now, but back then I learned to fight dirty, and I do mean dirty. Sammy always said, ‘Anybody who picks on a little girl is about as worthless as they come, and you can forget all those notions of honorable fighting. You need to be as low-down as he is, and believe me, little white girl’—that’s what he called me, ‘little white girl,’ but he had to look up at me while he was saying it ‘cause I was already a head taller than him—‘that’s more low-down than you can imagine.’ He taught me how to gouge out eyes, how not to be afraid to bite and hang on even if you get slung around, and how to break a man’s neck.”
“One night, Clyde came home while Mama was working, and he got right in my bed while I was asleep. He grabbed me and pinned me down before I could even wake up, and he was slobbering all over me, but I had a knife under my pillow—thank you Sammy—and I stabbed him in the arm, left a five-inch gouge right here.” She made a slicing motion on her forearm and gave a bitter smile at the memory. “He never laid a hand on me again, but then, about a year later, he started in on Sarah Jane. She was just eight.”
Sally Beth could not believe her ears. Somebody’s daddy would do that? Well, technically, he wasn’t her daddy, but any man had a responsibility to protect children. “Did you tell your mama?” She could only imagine what her own mama would do, and it wouldn’t be pretty.
“Oh, I tried. But he had already been talking trash about me to her, and well, I think she was suspicious of me because I looked so mature.” She sighed sadly. “To tell you the truth, I think she was jealous of me. My boobs were bigger than hers by then, and Clyde would make snide comments to her about her being a skinny sack of bones. I think she wanted me out of the picture because it was important to her to have a man around.”
“What did you do then?”
Edna Mae laughed again, but this time the sound was cheerful. “I beat the living tar out of him. I came in one day and he had little Sarah Jane backed into a corner, and she was sitting there whimpering while he pawed at her, and I got an iron skillet and sneaked up on him, and—Wham! I busted his head good, then grabbed up Sarah Jane. I took his wallet and his car keys, then cleaned out the mayonnaise jar Mama kept her cash in, shoved Sarah Jane in his car and we took off for Texarkana to my granny’s.”
“How old were you?”
“Twelve.”
Lilly gaped. “Lord have mercy! What happened then? You didn’t get caught driving that little?”
“I wasn’t little. I was already taller than any grown woman I knew, except for Granny—I take after her, you’ll see—and I looked a lot older. Nobody batted an eye.” She laughed. “Old Clyde was too afraid to report us ‘cause he knew we would tell what he had done to us, and I could point to that scar on his arm as evidence. Sarah Jane had some bruises where he had tried to hold her down, too, and I was ready to do whatever it took.” Sally Beth looked at the set line of her jaw, and she figured Clyde probably had an inkling of what he was in for if he made trouble.
“Good for you, honey. He deserved worse than you gave him,” she said, patting her arm.
Edna Mae flinched at the touch, then laughed. “We kept the car, and I managed to steal almost a hundred dollars off him, and another twenty off Mama. Me and Sarah Jane lived it up all the way to Granny’s. We probably had ten milkshakes on the way down.”
“Then what happened?”
“When we got there and told Granny about it, she called up Mama and cussed her out and told her if she didn’t throw that creep out, she’d never speak to her again. Last I heard, he was still there, and Granny nor any of us haven’t seen or talked to her since.” She dusted tortilla flour off her hands with a gesture of finality. “Hey bartender! We need another pitcher here.”
The bar began to fill up, the band arrived, and Lilly found a dance partner. When someone asked Sally Beth to dance, she forgot her troubles of the night before and leaped into the music and the energy bounding through the room. Even Edna Mae was persuaded to get out on the dance floor, dancing and singing along with the band until everyone in the bar joined in. The later it grew, the more celebratory they felt. Sally Beth learned the Texas two-step and was breathless and dizzy from spinning around, and, she admitted, from margaritas, even though she sipped at them slowly, drinking a glass of water between each one as Edna Mae had instructed her.
The music grew louder as more people arrived, including several odd-looking characters and three very small men. She thought at first they were children, but on closer look, she realized they were just very petite, like jockeys.
“Look!” exclaimed Lilly. “Munchkins!” The men stared at her.
“Lilly. Don’t make fun of them.”
“Sorry.” She looked over at the little men. “Sorry guys! I thought you were munchkins.”
“Lilly!” Sally Beth gave the men an embarrassed smile. “Don’t mind her,” she apologized. “She’s from the hills and doesn’t get out much.”
“Yep! That’s me, Silver Gilded Lilly straight from the hills of West Virginia. I’ve never danced with a munchkin before.” She stood up and made her way to the small men. “Who wants to be the first?”
One of them jumped up and grabbed Lilly’s hand. Another approached Sally Beth, and the next moment, she was kicking up her cowboy boots in the Electric Slide. The three little men got down on the floor and went through an amazing break-dancing routine while Sally Beth whirled around with a man who didn’t talk, but danced a funny, disjointed dance like a puppet on strings. Someone else pulled out juggling balls, and soon after, people were juggling, tumbling, and break-dancing all around them. Someone behind her said, “They’re from the circus. They’ve been in Midland all week. Wonder what they’re doing way out here?”
After another fast dance, a slow waltz started up, and Sally Beth let herself be pulled out to the middle of the floor to dance with her little partner. She was a bit tipsy, but when he mashed his face into her breasts and wrapped his arms around her waist, her mind sharpened, remembering the night before.
“Excuse me, but you’re dancing a little close,” she said quietly.
“Sorry,” he said, and backed off. But a moment later, he pulled her close again, breathing hot air into her blouse. At first, she was merely embarrassed, and she wondered how she could get out of the situation gracefully, but when he moved his head and his mouth zeroed in on a nipple, her embarrassment turned to mortification. A second later, something she had never felt before came washing over her.
She thought about eleven-year-old Edna Mae, missing the love and protection of her daddy, being awakened from a sound sleep by rough hands and foul breath. The image of the little girl exposed and afraid, fighting for her childhood, sent her into a hot rage against perversity and meanness. Before she knew what was happening, the little guy lay on the floor, and Sally Beth’s boot heel pressed heavily on his throat.
Edna Mae appeared at her elbow, pulling her away, “Good job, sweetie,” she said loudly enough to cover the sound of his coughing and choking. “That’ll teach him to mind his manners.” Reaching down to grab the man’s hand, she pulled him upright with one swift move and gave him a vigorous brushing off, as if he were covered with clinging sawdust. The scene was absurd: Edna Mae’s enormous bulk bending over the tiny man, her muumuu billowing out like the Big Top, whacking at him with far more force than necessary. It wasn’t clear if she were helping him or beating him up, but Sally Beth wasn’t about to stick around and find out. Flooded with shame and panic, she fled to the parking lot.
Lilly followed her out. “Hold on, honey!” she called, catching up with her and steering her toward the car, then she unlocked it, jumped in, and started the engine. Sally Beth flung herself into the front seat, and as Lilly backed out of the parking space, Edna Mae hurried out. She yanked open the back door, jumping in as the car lurched forward, and Lilly roared away, laughing hysterically. Edna Mae whooped and screamed.
“It’s not funny!” wailed Sally Beth. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Oh, yes it is, darlin’! You should have seen that little guy trying to get at your tits. It looked like he thought you were his mama. And you had him on the floor before he knew what hit him.”
“Good for you, Sally Beth!” exclaimed Lilly. “You took down a man and just about broke his windpipe; I didn’t know you had it in you. Wahoo! My sister, the Destroyer. Look out perverts—Sally Beth will take you down!”
“He was a midget!” sobbed Sally Beth. “Half my size—I could have hurt him!”
“But you didn’t,” soothed Edna Mae. “He was fine, just surprised, that’s all. Besides, he’s a clown in the circus; he’s used to tumbling around. You saw him earlier. He was just taking advantage of you, just like that guy last night. I am so glad I taught you that move. Now I don’t have to worry about you.” And she and Lilly laughed and laughed as Lilly stomped her cowboy boot down on the accelerator and blazed her way southward.
The adrenaline did not began to ebb from their blood until after they crossed the border into Texas, when the memory of the night could no longer fuel them and the dusty miles sucked away their energy. Lilly and Edna Mae continued to giggle between yawns, but Sally Beth felt a small, hard knot forming in her chest, and she realized it had been a while since she had had a good talk with the Lord. She felt small and sad and disconnected when she realized that she hadn’t been a very good influence on her sister.
Lord, I feel myself changing, as if this country is making me coarse and rough. Make me gentle again, Lord. Forgive me for my anger, my violence. Forgive me for being a bad example to Lilly. Take off this hardness that I feel creeping up on me, and shape me to be like You want me to be.
August 13, 1978
On the mountain where Singing Eyes wept
Deep into the night, he woke her, shaking her gently and kissing her forehead. “Wake up, darlin’. Time for the show.” Geneva blinked, not comprehending, but when he pulled her from the herb-scented bed, she suddenly realized what was afoot. Quickly, she slipped on her shoes, gathered up the sleeping baby, and wrapped them both in blankets. Then she slipped her arm around Howard’s back, and together they went out the door and up the mountain.
The stars were already falling in a sky so clear and black it looked like quicksilver streaming across black satin. She swaddled Blue tighter, and then lay down, placing the baby beside her, knowing what delights were to come.
For a while, Howard lay quietly beside her, before he seemed to make up his mind. He flung his blanket aside and rose to stand still under the falling stars, and then he began his dance. It was just as she remembered, his naked, smooth body twirling and leaping, his voice rising and dropping into a sustained note. She stood so that he could enclose her in his warm embrace, lifting her high into the cascade of stars. Flinging her neck back and her arms wide to embrace the night, she wept with gladness as she enfolded him to her, and even as the spinning stopped and the night stilled, she could not let him go. Arms and legs wrapped around him, she held him, feeling his warmth seeping into her, filling her with dreams and desire and laughter and more tears than she could hold, with the bittersweetness of knowing how beautiful, how fragile, how lovely, how temporary this life was. She wanted to make him understand just how much she loved him and how much more she wanted to love him in this short time they would have each other on this earth. But she could not speak.
At last, he broke from her and said, “I owe you something.”
“What else could you possibly give me?”
He slipped a ring onto her finger. “This is a year late.”
She blinked back the salt water, trying to make light of her deep emotion. “No, only a few months late.”
“No, Geneva. I married you one year ago tonight. You didn’t know it then, but I did. I told you then this was a marriage dance.”
The tears ran freely now, as she felt the ridges along the band and knew what they meant: a stream of comets stretching around the circumference. A mark of this night, a mark of her, Strikes fire in the soul. He had let her go after that, because he believed he could not live up to her vain notions of what her life should look like. But he had released her only to bring her back again when she had finally grown enough to realize what he meant to her. Now she knew how much he loved her, how much he had loved her then, and that they truly had been wed that night twelve months ago. She marveled at the knowledge that nothing in this creation could ever pull them apart.
The soft breath of the Milky Way whispered, “You are home now, and safe,” and she heard her heart singing a hymn.