Where The Heart Is Part 21

"I carried her up the hill," he said. A gust of wind pushed against the branches of the tree and a single pecan fell near the trunk. "Certain saw me coming . . . ran out across the yard. Met me right there . . . to the side of the well-house."

Novalee knew Moses was looking out the darkroom window, looking at the spot by the well-house, seeing again what had happened there in another lifetime.

And then Novalee saw it, too . . . saw Certain slip her daughter out of Moses' arms and into her own . . . saw him lower his eyes and her turn her face away as if each could not bear to see the sorrow of the other . . . because the handing over of a child had caused their hearts to break.

Chapter Seventeen.

N OVALEE FOUND THE ROLLEI at a flea market in McAlester, crammed in a box with cookbooks, bowling trophies and remnants of cotton ticking. Moses had told her it could take months to find one, but she'd gotten lucky. OVALEE FOUND THE ROLLEI at a flea market in McAlester, crammed in a box with cookbooks, bowling trophies and remnants of cotton ticking. Moses had told her it could take months to find one, but she'd gotten lucky.

She tried not to act excited when she saw it, remembering what Sister Husband had said.

"Never act like you want it, darlin'. Act like you wouldn't own it if they paid you. Tell them it's dirty, broken . . . a useless thing. Then make an offer."

The case looked like it had survived a battle, but just barely. The strap was broken and the top st.i.tching had pulled loose, causing the leather to curl at the corners.

The camera didn't look quite as worn as the case, but it was dinged and scratched . . . streaked with something black and sticky. She removed the lens cover and blew at layers of dust, but it was too big a job for breath to handle.

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The vendor pretended not to see Novalee while he faked interest in a plastic cuckoo clock that didn't work.

"This camera's filthy," she said, intent on following Sister's advice.

"Yep."

"Looks like it's broken, too."

"Nope."

"Don't know what in the world I'd do with it."

"Be me," he said, "I'd take some pictures."

"What do you want for it?"

"Askin' price is thirty, but I might go-"

Too fast, she blurted, "I'll give you thirty!"

Moses kept the camera for a week, repairing the shutter. He told Novalee he would need some time, but she drove out every day, hoping it would be ready.

When he did finally hand the Rollei over to her, it looked new- spit-polished, gleaming. And he'd also had the case repaired: the strap reattached and the seams st.i.tched up. He'd used saddle soap to clean the leather, then rubbed it with wax until it was soft as kid.

The next morning, Novalee strapped Americus to her back and was on the street before eight. She took pictures of everything-the Rhode Island Reds in Dixie Mullins' backyard, Halloween jack-o-lanterns lined up on the Ortiz porch, Leona's scarlet mums that grew in clumps along her fence. Novalee shot Henry's calico cat asleep in the mailbox and got one of a mockingbird dive-bombing a squirrel.

She took pictures of children hurrying to school, juggling lunch boxes and books as they waded through mud over the tops of their shoes. She got shots of a bald-headed man waiting outside a barbershop beneath a sign that said, HAIRCUTS WHILE YOU WAIT.

And she took several more of a large woman squeezed into a child's Where the Heart Is 169.

Star Wars bathrobe as she crawled out of her stalled car in a busy intersection.

That evening, as soon as she got off work, Novalee skipped dinner and went at it again. At the cemetery she shot old headstones; at the park she photographed splintered merry-go-round horses and broken swings. She took pictures of trees, dead and bare, their branches and trunks blackened by a recent fire. She went downtown, took pictures of graffiti, a b.u.mper sticker that said NO MORE b.u.mPER STICKERS . . . a cowboy boot, scuffed and dusty, standing alone in the middle of a street . . . and a Bible in a Dumpster, an indication, according to Sister Husband, that someone had gotten too confused.

Novalee took pictures of anything and anyone-all were fair game.

Americus was her most accessible victim and certainly the least able to defend herself. Sister Husband didn't object to being a subject- as long as she had enough warning to suck in her stomach and take off her gla.s.ses. But Forney would have none of it and took to wearing his stocking cap again, so if Novalee caught him out in the open, with no place to hide, he could at least pull the cap down and cover his face, a practice that resulted in two dozen photos of a giant man with a brown knit head.

Novalee worked in Moses' darkroom every night, some nights until after the Whitecottons were all in bed. She worked until her eyes stung . . . until her fingers were stained, her skin chapped and raw . . . until her clothes, her hair, her skin smelled like fixer. And later, in her bed, she dreamed of taking pictures, the same pictures all over again.

The neighbors came often, each time she had new pictures to show. They praised her talent; they were proud of her work. And they brought her rolls of film-gifts, they said, for their friend, the artist.

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They asked her to make pictures for them and they wanted to pay, begged her to name a price, but she wouldn't charge them. She took their pictures and loved doing it, pictures of their c.o.c.ker spaniel puppies, their prize-winning hot rolls, the fresh dents in their fenders.

She took pictures of their birthday parties, their anniversary celebrations, their piano recitals. She filmed the oldest Ortiz girl in her white communion dress, she took a picture of Leona's antique Victrola for her niece in New Jersey, she filmed an egg with three yolks, a grandbaby's footprint and a can of green beans with a worm inside for which Mr. Sprock was threatening to sue the Green Giant Corporation.

And the more pictures Novalee took and the more she developed, the more she wanted to learn about what she was doing. She studied photography magazines- Camera & Darkroom Camera & Darkroom and the and the Photo Photo Review. Review. She made calls to photo labs in Sacramento, California, and wrote letters to Kodak in Rochester, New York. She asked Moses a thousand questions and remembered everything he said. She made calls to photo labs in Sacramento, California, and wrote letters to Kodak in Rochester, New York. She asked Moses a thousand questions and remembered everything he said.

Forney brought her stacks of books and she read about Gordon Parks and William Henry Jackson. She studied the work of Dorothea Lange and Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams and Margaret Bourke-White.

Once, on a rare weekend off, she drove the Toyota to Tulsa and went to a photo exhibit, her first. She wandered the rooms and halls of the gallery and wrote pages of notes, then talked to herself all the way home about what she had learned.

Then, after all the hours she spent learning . . . after hundreds of pictures, days and nights in a darkroom, questions about shutter speeds and sepia tones and light vibrations . . . after all that, Novalee discovered what was important to her about pictures of cats and children and merry-go-round horses . . . about girls in white dresses Where the Heart Is 171.

and old women tasting tea . . . about birthday dinners and anniversary kisses. What was important to her was knowing that at the moment she took a picture, she was seeing something in a way n.o.body else ever had.

On a crisp morning in late November, Novalee got up well before dawn, pulled on jeans and sweats.h.i.+rt, grabbed a coat and her camera, then slipped out of the trailer as soundlessly as she could.

She was going to Rattlesnake Ridge ten miles east of town to film the sunrise. The ridge ran between two hills that Sister Husband called mountains, the Cottonmouth and the Diamondback, and she told stories of how they had gotten their names.

"Why, darlin', a boy I knew died the most horrible death up there on the Diamondback. They could hear him screaming all the way into town. When they brought him down, wasn't a spot on his body didn't have fang marks. Even got struck in the eyes. Counted near five hundred bites, so I was told."

Such stories gave Novalee gooseb.u.mps and bad dreams. She wouldn't think of going to Rattlesnake in warm weather, but they were far enough into the cold season that she wasn't worried about snakes.

After she parked the Toyota on the shoulder of Saw Mill Road, she took a flashlight from the car pocket, then climbed through a barbed wire fence enclosing a broad meadow smothered by an early morning fog.

A quarter-mile or so to the north, the flat land gave way, dropped ten or twelve feet to a low-water creek at the back of the meadow.

Novalee used a willow branch to measure the depth of the stream as she picked her way across the water on flat rocks and fallen trees.

At its deepest, it was little more than two feet. She was almost across 172 when something slapped at the water just inches from her feet, sending drops splattering against her pant legs. She aimed the beam of light toward the sound, but whatever it was left behind only ripples.

Just across the creek, the land rose sharply. The fog thinned as she began to climb. Pine needles crunched under her feet, making snapping sounds that caused her to stop once and look back, half expecting to see something behind her.

When she heard a rooster crow in the distance, she looked up to see the sky reddening in the east, so she picked up her pace, determined to be on the top before sunrise.

She liked the feel of her Rollei, still in the case, brus.h.i.+ng against her hip as it swung from the strap over her shoulder. For a few moments, she enjoyed the fantasy of being a war correspondent climbing a mountain to get shots of a battle in the valley on the other side, a scene she remembered from an old war movie.

Though the morning was cool, by the time she was halfway up the mountain, she shed her jacket and tied it around her waist. Not only was she hot, she was also winded, an indication, she was sure, that even at eighteen, she was already growing old.

She stopped to catch her breath, but when she realized she no longer needed the flashlight, that there was enough morning light to see by, she began to climb again, her own private race with the sun.

She knew she didn't have much farther to go . . . could tell by looking down to the meadow below. Whenever Sister Husband talked about these hills and called them mountains, Novalee would tease and call them molehills. She had, after all, lived with the Appalachians in her backyard. She knew what real mountains were-the only thing about Tennessee she missed.

She could hear the sounds of mysteries darting out of her way Where the Heart Is 173.

beneath the needles and dry leaves . . . insects, field mice, tree frogs . . . but they moved too fast for her to see. Louder sounds from farther away-sounds of animals working through the trees and underbrush-were most likely squirrels and racc.o.o.ns, but she liked to imagine they were deer.

When she broke through the last tree line before the top, she had a clear view of the ridge that stretched for more than a mile between the two hills. As she studied the last of the climb before her, trying to decide the best way to go, movement caught her eye, something running along the ridge, no more than a blur. Whatever she saw had appeared and disappeared so fast, she wasn't sure she had seen anything at all, but her heart raced as she fumbled at the buckles on her camera case.

She had just removed the lens cover when she saw it again, racing across the clearing between an outcropping of rock and a stand of young pines. She looked down to adjust the focus on the camera, looked down for only a split second, but by the time she found the ridge again in the viewfinder, whatever it was had disappeared.

A deer, she thought, though the shape was not quite right. A coyote, maybe . . . or even a bobcat, but from her distance and in the half-light, she couldn't be sure.

She had a decision to make. She could stay where she was, gamble that she might get some shots, deer or not, or she could give up and push hard for the top of the ridge so she could shoot the sunrise she came for. The decision was easy.

She scanned the ridge through the viewfinder, set the focus, found the angle she wanted and waited. Watched and waited until she saw it again . . . still running. She snapped, turned the crank, snapped again . . . watched it cross treeless ground, then saw what seemed 174 impossible to see. So sure it wasn't what she thought, she looked up, needed to see it with her eyes, as if the camera had distorted the sight. So she looked up, had to look at it directly because it wasn't a deer-not coyote, not bobcat-but a boy. A naked boy running across Rattlesnake Ridge.

And at that moment the first rays of the sun just cleared the ridge to form a golden luminous arc and, in the middle of it, was a naked boy running . . . a lean brown boy named Benny Goodluck who was running like the wind.

Chapter Eighteen.

T HE FIRST CHRISTMAS Novalee could remember, she was five. HE FIRST CHRISTMAS Novalee could remember, she was five.

She and Momma Nell were living in a trailer not far from the Clinch River with a red-headed man called Pike. The trailer set down in a bog that sucked at tricycle wheels and dog paws even without rain. But after three days and nights of it, mailboxes and fences had nearly disappeared.

On Christmas Eve, sometime after midnight, the rain washed out an earthen dam at Sharp's Chapel, a half-mile away. Momma Nell and Pike were gone, had been gone for two days and nights, and Novalee was asleep when the water started rising. The next morning when she crawled out of bed, their scrawny aluminum Christmas tree and two lengths of red plastic garland floated down the hallway toward her like spiny sea creatures adrift in strange seas.

Novalee couldn't remember much about other Christmas mornings.

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The first few years after Momma Nell left with Fred, the years of foster homes and state homes and Baptist homes, she had asked department store Santas to bring her Mickey Mouse watches and puppies, drum sets and Momma Nell, but it didn't take long to discover that Santas didn't come to Tennessee on Christmas mornings and mommas didn't either.

But this Christmas, the first one for Americus, was going to be different. This one was going to be perfect, just like the pictures in magazines . . . gifts tied in silver ribbon, a turkey and pumpkin pies, candy canes, mistletoe . . . and the most perfect Christmas tree in Oklahoma.

The second Sat.u.r.day in December, Novalee loaded Americus and Forney into the pickup and headed to the lake. They walked "eight thousand meters over savage terrain and uninhabitable topography,"

according to Forney, and looked at "three hundred dog-eared, bald-topped, anti-gogglin, b.u.t.t-heavy trees," according to Novalee. So, with Americus beginning to sniffle and Forney complaining about a bruised metatarsus, Novalee called off the search and they went home empty-handed.

The next Sat.u.r.day, Americus got a reprieve because of a cold, but Forney was dragged out at just after six and they went at it again.

"Perhaps we should take a different approach today," Forney said.

"I think we'll start north of s.h.i.+ner Creek."

"No, that's not what I mean."

"We can work our way around to the bridge."

"I mean let's start with a list." Forney pulled a small notebook and a pencil from his pocket. "A list of specifications."

"We could go out to Catfish Bay."

"A statement of particulars."

"Or Cemetery Road, toward the interstate."

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"For instance," Forney said, opening the notebook. "What about height? Over four feet? Under six?"

"Sister said she saw a stand of pines at Garners Point."

"Genus." Forney licked the pencil lead. "h.o.m.olepis? Veitchi? Veitchi?

Cephalonica? " "

Novalee slowed, then steered the Toyota onto the shoulder of the road. "If you'll get the shovel, I'll-"

"A statement of particulars, Novalee," Forney cried out in desperation.

"Oh, Forney," she said, her tone patient, her explanation logical, "I'll know it when I see it."

Forney groaned, Novalee grinned-and they crawled out of the pickup.

"Come on, Forney."

"Novalee, it's a parasite."

"But it's a tradition."

"It's a parasite! And you expect people to stand under it and kiss?"

"Yes! That's what people do with mistletoe."