Fireflies In December Part 23

"It's right hard to arrest men with no ident.i.ty."

"They got ident.i.ty, all right. I can tell you that Walt Blevins was one of 'em, and so was Cole Mundy. I know them voices."

"Jessilyn-" Daddy grunted from the strain of lifting Luke-"I thought we agreed not to get the law into this."

Mr. Tinker went over to help Daddy, ignoring my insistence that the men be arrested.

We got Luke settled on the couch, and Momma gathered her antiseptic and bandages. I followed Mr. Tinker out to his truck, telling him all the reasons he needed to arrest half the men in Calloway.

But he seemed loath to engage in any argument with me. "Jessilyn, you best talk this over with your daddy. Now you head on back inside, you hear?"

"Ain't no use gettin' the law involved," Luke moaned when I renewed my argument inside. "Even if we could for certain identify them, which we can't, they'd get off anyhow. That's the way it works in these parts. Klan gets by with everythin' and anythin'."

"But, Luke, just look what they done to you." I had his hand in mine, and I kept squeezing it. "They bruised you all up. They can't get by with that."

"Jessilyn," he said with a grin, "you're gonna wear the blood right outta my hand."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I gasped, dropping it quickly. "Did I hurt you more?"

Luke put a hand on my cheek and patted it lightly. "I'm gonna be just fine, you can be sure. Don't you worry none about me."

"I always worry about you," I said, tears starting to drip down my cheeks again.

Momma coaxed me away. "You let me fix him up now, and you go put some tea on. It'll settle his stomach." I watched for a minute as Momma worked on him. Her hands were as shaky as the rest of us. "Just look at me." She laughed nervously. "I'm all thumbs tonight."

Gemma and I went into the kitchen together, and as I filled the teapot, Gemma came to my side and whispered, "What'd that man say to you when he had you? He threaten you again?"

"Leave me be. Ain't me you got to worry about."

"I got this whole family to worry about. Now, I want to know what he said to you," she demanded.

I slammed the teapot onto the stove, but her grip on my arm told me she was in no mood to accept defeat. "Fine! He said it wasn't over. That's all."

Gemma shook her head, wide-eyed. "He's got somethin' in for you."

"Everyone in this town has it in for us. What's the difference?"

"But Walt's got it in special for you. He's gonna hurt you, you hear? He won't be happy till he does."

"You promised not to tell no one," I argued. "You best keep it to yourself."

"I don't have to do nothin' that I think puts you in danger. This has all gone far enough, and I'm tellin' your daddy."

"No, you ain't," I said. "You just keep your mouth shut!"

Gemma looked me hard in the eye and tightened her lips before saying, "Not this time. This time, I do what I gotta do." She moved away from me.

But I caught up to her and blocked the doorway. "You ain't tellin'."

"I'm tellin' your daddy," she replied. "I'm tellin' your daddy right now."

"Tellin' me what?" Daddy asked, his sudden appearance making us both startle.

Gemma looked at Daddy and then back at me. "Gotta do it, Jessie. For your own good."

I folded my arms and glared at her fiercely, but I didn't stop her. I knew it was useless.

"Gemma?" Daddy asked. "What is it you're tryin' to say? I want to know what's goin' on in my own house, you hear?"

"It's that Walt Blevins," Gemma said with hesitation.

"What about him?"

"He's been threatenin' Jessilyn."

"Threatenin' her in what way?"

"He's been talkin' to her indecent-like."

"What do you mean, indecent-like?" Daddy leaned down as though getting closer to Gemma would help him understand her better. Then his eyebrows narrowed, and he asked, "You mean he's makin' advances at my baby?"

Gemma said nothing, and Daddy correctly took her silence as corroboration. His face turned violent, and his eyes looked darker than I'd ever seen. The distress this news was bound to cause my daddy was part of what had kept me from saying anything to him, and I eyed Gemma sharply.

"Gemma," Daddy finally said after several seconds of silence, "you stay with Jessilyn as much as you can when you're home, you hear?"

"Yes'r."

"And, Jessilyn, you stay in this house. No goin' out without me or Luke, and no wanderin' in the fields."

"But, Daddy," I moaned, "I'll have nothin' to do."

"Now you listen to me, Jessilyn La.s.siter. Ain't no tellin' what that man's capable of, and I ain't gonna have you walkin' into his trap."

"I'll be stuck in this house all day, bored stiff."

"Bored is a lot better'n what you could be if that man gets his paws on you. You stay in this house. You hear?"

I stood there in slight shock, watching everything I'd feared come true.

"I asked you a question, Jessilyn," Daddy said. "You hear me?"

"Yes'r."

Momma came up behind Daddy with b.l.o.o.d.y rags in her hands. "What in the world is goin' on now? Ain't we had enough trouble in this house for one night?"

"Jessilyn's been gettin' threats and not tellin' us," Daddy bellowed. "Walt's been bein' aggressive with her, and our girl decides not to tell us."

"Jessilyn!" Momma sounded horrified. "What'd that man do to you?"

"He ain't done nothin'. He's just sayin' things, is all."

"I don't care if he's just sayin' things or not," Daddy continued. "Ain't no way you're goin' out of this house without a man with you, and that's final."

Luke joined the fray at this point, his voice weak but strong enough to be heard over the commotion. "Who's been threatenin' Jessie? Is it Walt again? I swear, I'm gonna kill that boy. . . ."

I'd had enough. I couldn't take the loud voices and the chaos any longer, and the very idea of losing what little liberty I had left made my heart sink further still. My nerves broke. "Everybody just stop! You see why I told you not to tell, Gemma?" I asked in tears. "Ain't I had enough troubles this summer, now I got to be locked up in my own house? Walt Blevins, he gets to go around doin' whatever he pleases, and I got to suffer for it. Ain't none of this fair, and I'm tired of all of it. Everybody just leave me alone!" I pushed past Daddy, running upstairs to lock myself in the bathroom.

Gemma knocked on that bathroom door near about fifty times, but I ignored her and put my hands over my ears to block out the noise. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why she was so worried about getting in there, and I yelled as much at her when she hit around sixty knocks. "What's your fuss? Can't you leave me alone, like I said?"

"You let me in there."

"What for? Leave me alone."

"No! I want in there."

I unlocked the door and opened it just enough to peer at her through the slit. "I got people followin' me near everywhere these days. I should be able to go to the bathroom by myself."

"Now listen here," Gemma said seriously, her hands planted firmly on her ap.r.o.ned hips. "You fixin' to do some-thin'?" "Besides gettin' rid of you?"

"Yes, ma'am. I mean besides that."

"Like what?" I argued, squinting till my eyes were barely open. "Can't do much in this little bathroom."

She leaned closer to the door, poking her nose into the small s.p.a.ce I'd left her. "Now listen here," she said again, like she was my momma or something. "You plannin' on hurtin' yourself?"

For a few seconds I didn't know what she was talking about, but when I realized what she'd meant, I rolled my eyes. "That's right. I came in here to jump out the window."

"Don't you kid about that. I'm serious!"

"If I jumped out this here window, I'd land on the kitchen roof. Most I'd do is twist an ankle." I wiped my runny nose with the back of my hand. "Good grief, Gemma Teague, you do beat all."

"You've been all nerves and jitters lately, and now you're all upset like this. Can't see as how I shouldn't think you might be up to somethin' bad."

"Life ain't so bad I'd kill myself."

Gemma pushed the door until it opened about six inches. I could have kept her out, but I let her open it, figuring I'd put her mind at ease. I thought she was being crazy, but even in my state, I didn't want her fretting about me dying.

"You ain't got nothin' in here you can hurt yourself with, do you?" she asked, stepping into the room, going straight over to the medicine chest.

"Don't think I can kill myself with Daddy's stomach pills," I told her. "They're nearly just candy peppermints, anyhow."

She ignored me and continued to turn bottles around for inspection.

"Ain't likely I can kill myself with bandages, hair oil, or perfumed powder neither," I said with a sigh. I held the door open widely for her. "Can you leave me be now?"

"I heard of someone that done choked on powder before." Gemma held the bottle up and shook it to determine how much was left.

"Oh, you did not," I said with a smirk. "Ain't n.o.body ever choked on powder."

"Did too! Old Mr. Donley broke old Mrs. Donley's bottle of rose powder, and he inhaled so much of it he died the next day. It coated his lungs."

"Old Mr. Donley was close to a hundred years old. He died of a heart attack."

"Wouldn't have had a heart attack if he didn't breathe in that powder."

I thought her story was ridiculous, and I was finding her intrusion particularly irritating now. "Just shut on up and get outta here."

We glared at each other, mostly because neither of us liked being bossed around, and here we were doing just that to each other.

"I'm takin' the powder with me," Gemma said adamantly.

I have no idea why I didn't want her to. I certainly had no plans to smother myself with it. But the very idea that she was so certain I might try got me angry. "No, you ain't, neither," I said, grabbing the bottle.

She never let go, and we both had our hands on the powder, tugging away.

"You ain't keepin' it, I'm tellin' you," Gemma growled.

"Let go!"

"No! You let go. I was here first."

"Jessie, just let go, and I'll leave you be."

"No!"

We pulled and argued for another thirty seconds, and for the life of me I have no idea how Momma and Daddy didn't tear into us for making such a ruckus. But we stood there fussing, tripping toward each other and then away from each other with each tug on the bottle. That is until I gave it one last good tug that pulled Gemma forward quickly enough to cause powder to fly out of the pinhead-size holes in the bottle, sending a white cloud through the bathroom with a great poof.

We both started to cough, and I waved my hand through the air, my eyes shut to keep the powder out. Gemma dropped the powder bottle into the sink and started shrieking, pus.h.i.+ng me desperately. We both stumbled out into the hall, covered in white.

"Quit pus.h.i.+n' me," I yelled when I regained my stability. "You tryin' to kill me yourself?"

"We had to get outta there," she argued. "I ain't gonna let us die like old Mr. Donley."

I shook my head and coughed one more time. "This is the dumbest thing you've ever done," I said, brus.h.i.+ng white from my dungarees.

Gemma didn't say a thing. She just cleared her throat about five times and then let her tongue hang out like Duke when he was hot.

"What're you doin'?" I asked.

"I can't breathe right," she gasped.

"Don't be stupid!"

"I can't!"

"Well, I'm breathin' just fine."

Gemma staggered about the hallway like the sky was falling, clutching her chest.