Ever seizes my arm. “Eyes ahead, Ruth. Go!”
I pull the last dregs of strength from my body and take off.
“Don’t stop,” shouts Ever from beside me. “Don’t let them catch us.”
His words trigger an old warning, given to me before I was old enough to understand. That harsh, deep voice comes back:You must never let them catch you. Ahead, moonlight glitters on the bayou, and I know in my heart: I would rather drown in it than be caught.
23
AUGUST, THIRTEENYEARS OLD
Always, the men descended on our house at night. Once every few months, our front door would swing open so fast it cracked into the wall and my father’s baritone laugh would boom through the hall, followed by their too-loud voices as they stumbled after him. Shiny faces and unfocused eyes, spills down their shirts, blood scabbed on their knuckles from whatever they’d been up to besides drinking. I was always swept upstairs immediately, so I never found out, but I’d heard my mother refer to these nights as my father’s “social hours.”
Tonight, the sudden tornado of braying and hooting was the only warning before they poured inside, more men than usual, their presence freezing me at the kitchen sink. I stood listening to their laughter as they made their way to my father’s secret liquor cabinet until the water overflowed my cup and spilled down my hands. Hurriedly, I turned off the faucet.
I was wiping my hands on the kitchen towel, planning how to avoid them—a mad dash up the stairs, maybe, or a slink through the shadows—when Augustus Blanchard shuffled into the kitchen, bent stiffly over his cane.
He stopped in his tracks when he saw me. I flushed hot, cheeksburning—caught in my nightshirt by Augustus Blanchard, of all people, who was less a real man than a myth. Before this moment, I’d only seen him in profile. On the rare Sundays Augustus came down from the mountain, I passed the time staring at him while my father lectured, wondering what marvels filled his enormous house.
His lips peeled back in a strange smile, showing too much of his gums. “Miss Ruth Cornier.” He had a stentorian voice with only the faintest bit of our drawl, which gave him an air of grandeur. Even now, late at night, he wore a dark three-piece suit with a pocket watch tucked into his vest, the gold chain swinging.
I didn’t respond—only thought hard, trying to understand what I was supposed to do. His eyes—green once, maybe, but now discolored with age—narrowed keenly. He took a fat brown cigar and a lighter from inside his jacket and, to my horror, stuck the cigar in his mouth and lit it, puffing out smoke like a fire-breathing dragon.
There was no smoking allowed in our house. But maybe Augustus was above even my mother’s authority.
“What do you think of all this ruckus, Ruth?” Augustus puffed on the cigar again, then waved it at the house. The rich scent of tobacco traveled to me.
“It’s daddy’s social hour,” I whispered, and to my surprise, that elicited a great booming laugh.
“Well,” he said, settling his great body into a chair at the kitchen table. “Aren’t you clever.” He patted the table. “Sit. Let’s test this mind of yours. I enjoy talking to young ones. Imparting my knowledge. With Herman, he was never…” He let his voice trail off, then patted the table again insistently.
Though I wasn’t supposed to be out here and it was the last thing I wanted, the instinct to obey was automatic. My legs dragged me to the table and dropped me in a chair. I watched Augustus carefully, the way a rabbit watches a bobcat. In the window over his shoulder, I could seemen filtering into the backyard, the glowing orbs of their cigars like fireflies bobbing in the dark.
“Tell me what you’re reading in school,” Augustus said, folding a hand over his cane, the top of which was carved in the shape of a bear’s head. I’d heard a rumor its glittering red eyes were made of real rubies.
His question took me by surprise. I looked down at the table and answered truthfully. “Where the Red Fern Grows.”
“Disgraceful.” He puffed his cigar, then waved. “Fluff.”
“But…” I lowered my voice. “I’m readingLittle Womenon my own.”
I don’t know why I said it. Maybe deep down I was vain and proud and wanted Augustus Blanchard to know I was smart. And since I couldn’t tell him about the books I’d found in the town library, like the Percy Jacksons,Little Womenwas my safest confession.
“Ah.” His bushy eyebrows raised. “A reader, then.” He eyed me. “Dangerous quality in a girl.”
It was like he could see inside my soul with those cloudy eyes. Silence stretched between us until Augustus knocked ash from his cigar onto the kitchen table. “If you had to sum up the lesson ofLittle Womenin one word, what would it be?” He sounded like his son then, like a teacher.
Independence, I thought. “Duty,” I said carefully.
He studied me for a long time before his face split into a great gummy smile. “Well, look at you. It seems James has a ticking time bomb on his hands. I do admire a learned woman, Miss Ruth. They’re as rare as those exotic birds at the zoo.” He cocked his head. “You ever been to that zoo up in New Orleans?”
I shook my head.
“Ah, well. Zoos are places we hold creatures that are better off caged. Kept contained, you hear?”
He was waiting for my response, so I nodded. Unease crept through my belly.
“Are you going to grow up a good girl, Miss Ruth, or are you going to be a threat to your daddy?” His smile grew so wide I could see the dark crescents where his gums were pulling back from his teeth. “He gonna need to cage you?”
