Blood, Dreams, and Olive Drab (Pride & Promise) Read online

  "Okay, dear," the Sheriff acknowledged. He took a couple shuffling steps towards the bed till his pant legs nearly touched Sarah’s and Clarene’s legs.

  They were not about to move from their posts. Angela stood at the doorway with a policeman on either side of her, encased like a mouse in a cage. She held her balled-up hand over her mouth and started to bite down on her knuckles as she felt a series of shuddering waves of anxiety flashing through her body.

  "Bernice, do you remember the night you got injured?" The Sheriff posed the question and waited for a response. Bernice just nodded her head affirmatively. The room was always warm but suddenly, as if the embers of the fire had been stoked, the room took on a sweltering heat, almost the smothering effect of wool blankets being laid over the room. Each forehead, neck, and cheek was glistening with the slight pearly glow of fearful sweat.

  "All right, dear." The Sheriff leaned in a bit closer, splitting the two sisters on the bed. With pupils black and small like the heads of pins, they glared at the man with great hatred. "Now do you remember what happened?" From his tone you would have thought she was a baby, not a little girl. You could see a bit of a frown that was bitter and angry start to warp Bernice’s cheeks.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Could you tell me? I keep hearing this story and it just sounds strange to me. I’m not so sure I believe it but I thought maybe you could help shed some light on it. Could you?" His voice was as sweet and warm as the summer wind.

  Bernice turned and looked at the Sheriff for the first time and he could see something in her eyes. It was pain but not physical, not like the wince of a wounded soul or the stabbing pain of an old woman, but there was a depth of sorrow within her glossy eyes.

  "Sheriff," she began as all eyes in the room were upon her, watching her tiny face. As the contours of her cheeks and jaw moved slowly, the smoothness of her brow and neck seemed to move in a gentle but agonizing rhythm.

  "Yes, dear . . . ." He leaned farther forward, eager to hear the lament of the true story.

  "It was an accident." Bernice spoke with an exacting voice. "Now if you could leave my family alone. It is hard for me to talk about but it is harder for all of us to talk about. Please just let us be." And with that and one more look from her grave eyes and restless face, Bernice looked away and out the window to the vast world outside.

  The Sheriff stayed on one knee for a second and contemplated her words. A web of thoughts faded across his mind, and then he stood up with a grunt and took a few steps back away from the bed, his eyes never leaving the trio of girls that were close to one another atop the bed. The Sheriff turned around and was able to catch a brief glimpse of Angela’s face, which was now being dampened by the tears that raced down her cheeks. She didn’t even bother trying to look at the Sheriff. She rushed to Bernice’s bed and circled her arms around her girls and pulled them together as they huddled over Bernice.

  "Let’s go," the Sheriff uttered.

  "But, Sheriff," one of the officers said, with a strange look of befuddlement in his face.

  "I said, let’s go," the Sheriff grunted, grabbing the officer by the arm and spinning him around till he was facing the door. He moved past them, plowing his shoulders into theirs until they were all moving towards the front door.

  It clapped shut, and even with the simmering heat a stark and cool breeze magically swept through the room, leaving all heads a bit cooler while all hearts began to beat to a more serene melody.

  6

  It had been a long and tiring day and Angela could feel each year of her age as she sat on the front porch licking the last of the pie from her fingers. There was enough of a break in the clouds that the last couple rays of light shown down on Bernice as she, too, enjoyed the last couple morsels.

  "Mama, Mama," came a loud cry from underneath the low hanging sycamores that lined the edge of the dusty trail. "Mama, Mama," rang through the valley again with a sense of extreme urgency.

  "Sarah?!" Angela said as she stood from her perch. "Clarene?!" she called out as she could see her two children’s lively forms splitting through the swaying curtain of low branches.

  "Mama, Mama," Sarah gasped for breath, her cheeks and face flush with perspiration, "you gotta come, you gotta!" Sarah grabbed at Angela’s sleeve and tried to pull her along. Clarene stood by as fear clung to her red cheeks and wide open eyes.

  "Calm down, child!" Angela tried to understand her blathering daughter. "Just calm down and talk slow. What happened?" Angela said in a soft serene tone.

  "We were in town, Clarene and I . . . ." Sarah turned and gave a nervous look at her sister who quickly nodded her head. "And we walked past the post office and then the ice cream stand, and then we were going to come home. And that Sheriff’s car came whipping down the street. And that Sheriff came to a hard stop in front of the police station!" Sarah paused and tried to catch her breath.

  "Yes?" Angela shrugged her shoulders and began to feel a bit of a tall tale developing from her eldest daughter.

  "The Sheriff jumped out of the car and hauled somebody out of the back seat." Sarah’s gentle face took on a troubled look till her features were as haggard as a teenage girl could manage.

  "All right, girls!" Angela was done with this day, a day that had stretched the fibers of her nerves and she was in no mood to play silly games. "Enough tales. Hustle inside and get washed up." Angela’s face was glum and weary.

  "Mama," Sarah began to mutter, "it was Daddy."

  And the world suddenly flipped upside down. Angela’s face grew long as her eyes widened and you could see her shoulders grow tense but at the same time, slouch. The poor thing exhaled the last bit of breath in her lungs and if she still had some tears left to cry, she surely would have.

  "Sarah," she released a deep sigh.

  "Yes, Mama." Sarah could see the woeful cringe that reverberated through her mother’s broken soul.

  "Are you sure it was your Daddy? Was it Paul?" Angela only called her husband by his name to her children when she was severely disappointed and over the years the children had heard his name far too often.

  "Yes, Mama. I called out to him as they were leading him into the police station and he looked up but once he saw me, he just hung his head," Sarah mumbled.

  Angela just nodded her head and bit her lip.

  "Girls, you stay here. I’m going to take the cart and ride into town before it gets dark." She withdrew from them and lumbered towards the barn, nearly stumbling with each step. The last couple streams of sunlight folded around the barn and lit the dust that was rising from her shuffling feet.

  "Mama," Sarah called out, "do you want us to come?"

  Angela never even looked back. She just shook her head and disappeared into the black mouth of the open barn doors. Sarah and her sisters heard a few minutes of wrestling with the bridle and reins and then a low pathetic whimper came from the shadows. To the girls it seemed to last an eternity but after a while the muffled cries faded. The cart emerged from the barn with Angela sitting aloft with her head held high.

  "I’ll be back in a while," Angela announced as she slowed the cart. "You make sure your sisters get to bed soon, Sarah. You hear?"

  "Yes, Mama," Sarah nodded her head with her lip protruding sadly.

  "It will be fine. I’ll be back soon. Go on and get ready for bed, okay?" Angela reassured her girls.

  They all nodded nearly in unison. Angela lightly cracked the reins and the horse started to pull the cart away from the house. The girls watched as the dark form slipped under the low limbs of the sycamores and vanished into the impeding darkness. The subtle rattling of the wheels over the rocks and dry path lingered on the nighttime breeze.

  It had been a long day for Angela as she rode over the undulating hills on her way to town. This day had produced two pies and several hard thought-provoking discussions which felt like they had taken years off her already tumultuous life. She held the reins lightly in her hands, not really even steering the old horse, a
nd her thoughts drifted. Hundreds of scenarios sifted gravely through her mind. She knew this night would take more than a warm pie to end the mayhem that had befallen her family.

  Angela strode up the steps of jailhouse with an iron will and a stiff upper lip. It didn’t matter because when she entered and saw the steely reserve of the Sheriff, Angela knew he saw right through her reserve.

  "Mrs. O’Grady," Sheriff began. He was already shaking his head and he didn’t even look her in the face as he rounded his desk. He waved his hands in the air. "Don’t even start! Don’t you even start!!" he growled.

  "But, Sheriff . . . ," her words started out strong and full of vigor.

  "Don’t you even ‘. . . but-Sheriff me!’" The Sheriff came to a halt standing right in front of Angela. He finally looked up and slid his jaw to the side as he looked at her with reproach.

  "Sheriff." The vim had left her tone and she was on the cusp of begging.

  "I don’t care what Sam Cartwright said or Bernice. You can lie all you want and so can they, but I’m no one’s fool, Mrs. O’Grady!" he hissed, letting his rigid jaw slide to the other side. He looked down upon her as if he were disappointed in her.

  Angela was stupefied and she stood there with her arms folded over her chest. As much as she tried to fight it, a few tears started to glisten upon her blue eyes. She bit down on her lip till it nearly bled. She and the Sheriff stared at each other till the air left the room and there was barely enough space in the jailhouse for those two stubborn bull-headed people.

  Angela entered into a fairly decent-sized room with one large desk on the left side which was the Sheriff’s. A couple smaller desks were on the right that belonged to the two deputies who were still at their desks. Their faces were red enough to be rubies, but they could not take their eyes off the proceedings. In the back of this room a doorway was centered on the bland white wall and the door that led down a short hallway. There were four jail cells down that hallway and they were always empty, but on this monumental occasion, they had one prisoner in the jailhouse. Their one prisoner had his face pressed up against the cell bars and was watching the battle even more intently than the two young deputies.

  "Would it help if I told you the truth?" Angela said defensively, her voice laced with anger.

  "It might," the Sheriff returned, his glare still penetrating Angela’s hard demeanor.

  Angela turned her head away and looked down the dismal back corridor and could see the reflection of her husband’s eyes in the dim light of the hall. They looked like two black pearls in shallow water. Paul stared at his wife with great curiosity.

  "All right," Angela decided, "here’s the way it was. I will only say this once." She started tapping her foot against the hard floor.

  "All right," the Sheriff answered.

  "I accepted a ride home from town from Mr. Cartwright," Angela started, letting her eyes wander about the room, averting her eyes with a nervous twitter. "And when we got close to home, Paul saw us and darted out and tore Mr. Cartwright from his wagon and started beating him." Angela abruptly stopped her story, hoping she could end her anguish.

  "What about Bernice?" the Sheriff asked with a high questioning voice.

  "Paul hurt her in the fray. She was sitting next to Mr. Cartwright and he ripped her down off the wagon and tossed her onto the ground. She landed . . . unnaturally." Angela looked away.

  The Sheriff nodded his head and had a look of coy satisfaction on his broad face.

  "Can we go now?" Angela muttered.

  The Sheriff paused and Angela could almost hear the tumblers in his head rolling about as he hedged his thoughts.

  "I can’t, Mrs. O’Grady, I just can’t," Sheriff lamented. "This thing your husband has done is a cruel and hateful thing, not just to your neighbor, but to your own daughter. Don’t you see, Mrs. O’Grady?"

  "But, Sheriff!" Angela no longer had a surly look, but her face had melted and her tone was filled with despair. "We need him, we truly do!" she began to sob. "Sheriff, the girls have no one else! No one! I have no one else! No one!" she began to rant, but each sound was smothered by her crying whisper.

  "Mrs. O’Grady, Mrs. O’Grady," the Sheriff started, and his staunch face slipped away and he let his shoulders crumble as he looked upon this poor wretched soul. "I can’t let him go with you. If he does something else wrong, you obviously will lie for him at the drop of a hat, but . . . if you had someone that could vouch for him and be willing to watch him or monitor him . . . maybe I would consider letting him go. Maybe . . . ," the Sheriff offered, trying his best to find a solution.

  "All right!" Angela started to think and her mind spun as faces and people flashed across her thoughts. "All right," she hemmed. She flashed a look down the back hall and could see the silhouette of Paul’s face. "I’ll try." She nodded her head and hurried from the building.

  "Sheriff," one of the deputies said, "why would you even contemplate making her that deal?"

  "No one in town will vouch for him," the Sheriff grumbled and glared down the back hallway. His stare was hard and angry enough that you could see the flickering of his two black pupils recede back into the depths of the shadows.

  7

  Angela stood with her hands cupped as tiny pebbles rested in her palms. She started to chuck them up into the night and they pinged off the pane of the second story window of the brick building. It took several tries as they hit their target and then fell harmlessly to the ground to blend with the dust of the dirt road. After several minutes, a single cone of light glowed within the frame of the window and she could see a shadow moving about in the luminescence. There was enough light that when the dark figure moved in front of the window, she could not make out his face. The window was flung open and a pair of wide shoulders leaned out into the wounded night.

  "Sis?" Uncle Johnny hissed, his voice low and nearly mumbling as he wiped the last of his sleep from his eyes.

  "Johnny," Angela said with a stiff upper lip since it took the weight of her to summon up the courage, "I need to talk to you about something."

  "All right," he replied and then nodded his head. His eyes faded shut with a worried glance. He disappeared from the window and she could hear him rattling about the shadowy room and then come marching down the inner staircase. The front door of the butcher shop swung open slowly and he appeared clad in a jacket and overalls to fill the front doorway. "Come in," he offered, lovingly patting his sister on the back as she entered.

  "Want some coffee?" Johnny asked. They sat in the kitchen of the second floor of the building. Johnny had always been good with his money. Some would call him thrifty; he would call himself smart. Since he was a boy, he had saved each penny and at first rented the space for his shop, but within a few years had bought the entire building. He worked on the first floor and lived on the second, something all the store owners on the block did.

  "Yes, but don't make a fuss about it," Angela gushed, her voice strained and shaky.

  "It’s no problem," Johnny grinned and started moving about the kitchen.

  There was a nervous silence in the room between the two siblings as the aroma of the coffee started to fill the room. Johnny poured two cups and slid one of them across the divide of the table to his sister.

  "What is it, Angela," Johnny inquired as he sipped the thick black coffee.

  "I need to tell you something, Johnny," Angela announced, feeling a tremble in her hands which caused her to nearly spill her coffee as she raised the steaming brew to her face.

  "Okay," Johnny hesitated as he spoke. With a dazed concentration, he stared to the side of Angela as if he was looking at the floor boards across the room.

  "I haven’t been completely honest with you," Angela muttered.

  "Okay," he still stared away as if a trance had captured his mind.

  "Mr. Cartwright, and Bernice . . . ," she started, as she, too, could not look at her sibling. She pondered with a stupefied eye into the depth of the black coffee. "They were not
injured falling off the wagon that night." She took a second as if she was in the eye of the storm and she was waiting for the wall of high clouds to boom with thunder. But there was only an anxious silence. "Paul was jealous and beat Mr. Cartwright and he threw Bernice to the ground!"

  As her words slipped out of her lips, from the corner of her eye she could see Johnny’s hands wrap tightly around the face of the coffee mug and his forearms turn to stone. He took one of his hands off the mug and clenched his fist tight enough that you could hear his knuckles crack. "He didn’t mean to, it just happened," Angela floundered.

  "It just happened??" Johnny roared, causing Angela to sit back in her chair and gasp. "You don’t just beat a man half to death and cripple a little girl and say ‘It just happened,’ Angela!" Johnny shook his head and an ominous mask darkened his face.

  "Johnny," Angela began and then thought better.

  They sat for what seemed like an eternity with nothing but the darkness between them. Angela fidgeted with a nervousness to her bones but Johnny sat perfectly still. The sleepiness had left his eyes, but there was now a distance in his gaze. His eyes were heavy and set deep into his face and Angela would occasionally look sideways and peek at him. She had never really seen her little brother as a man. He was always just her little brother. But in this moment as the night was creeping around outside and her body was stiff with a confused and needy worry, Johnny was suddenly not just her younger sibling. He was a man.

  "Why did you come here at this time of night to tell me this?" Johnny asked with a bewildered tone.

  "What?" Angela asked, trembling like a beaten dog.

  "Well," Johnny started, "you could have told me at any time--tomorrow, the day after, yesterday-- why now? Why in the middle of the night?" He looked up and tried to make eye contact with her but she took a sip of coffee and tried to hide behind the mug.

  "I need you to help me." She gulped down the coffee and took a deep breath. Letting the air fill her chest, she could feel her shoulders push back.