Summer of the Redeemers Read online

  “Is Greg a good worker?” My voice trembled, but I was trying hard to be polite. I was also looking for any cracks there might be in this new arrangement.

  “Greg? Why do you ask?”

  “Didn’t you hire him?”

  “For labor. I hired Jamey Louise Welford to help with the horses. Her daddy farms and they own stock.”

  I could have swallowed my tongue. “Jamey Louise is a moron,” I said sharply. “She hates animals. She doesn’t care two figs for the horses.”

  “Maybe not. But she doesn’t come in my barn and take the blankets off without permission.”

  Nadine’s voice had a snap to it, but she was still smiling. At least it looked like a smile.

  “They were sweating. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “You could have given them pneumonia, Bekkah. They got too cool too quickly. They could have gotten very sick.”

  “They were sweating! Cammie was trembling!”

  “If you knew the first thing about horses, I might be interested in hearing your opinions. I think, though, that if you’re going to come on my property, you need to realize that I know what’s best for my animals.”

  Of all the things I’d expected to find at Nadine’s, a reprimand wasn’t one of them. I’d only been trying to help. I thought I’d done something she’d thank me for.

  “I didn’t mean any harm.” I forced the words out. It was all so unfair! Alice and Jamey Louise, and now this! No matter what I did, it was wrong.

  “I know that, Bekkah. It’s just that in acting without knowledge, you could have killed Cammie or one of the other horses.”

  Her hand on my shoulder was small, but the fingers gripped hard.

  “It’s okay. I’m not angry and no harm was done. Maybe if I explained about the blankets you’d understand.”

  I nodded. I needed a few minutes to compose myself, so I walked back to Cammie’s stall. Her forelock needed straightening, and I reached up to comb the tangle of hair with my fingers.

  “Show horses can’t have winter coats. They have to be very thin-skinned. They can’t get out in the sun and get bleached out either. They have to look perfect. Sometimes, in a ring, there’ll be two horses tied for first place. When the judge hasn’t got any other criteria, he’ll use appearances. That gleaming coat may be the only thing that gives me a blue ribbon.”

  “And the blankets keep the hair thin?”

  “Right.” I started to tell her what Mama Betts said, but I knew my grandma didn’t know anything about show horses. Nadine’s horses were special animals with special needs. Mama Betts only knew about ordinary stock.

  “Where have you been today?” Nadine asked. She slipped Cammie’s halter over her head and lead her to the cross ties. “Tell me while you groom Cammie for a ride. I think it’s time for your lesson.”

  “I can’t take lessons…. I was going to work them off, remember?”

  “There’s plenty of work for you and Jamey. In fact, she should be arriving just about the time you finish riding. You two can clean the stalls together.”

  I’d rather have danced with the devil, but I wanted to ride so bad I couldn’t complain. After I thought I’d lost my chance, I wasn’t going to say anything else about Jamey Louise. Nadine could find out on her own.

  Cammie was drying out, and as I ran the stiff brush over her body I told Nadine about going down to the creek with Alice and Maebelle V.

  “It’s a wonder you two don’t kill that little baby,” she said. “I saw y’all bumping down the road with her.”

  “Maebelle’s tough. She can take it.”

  “Tell me about the Redeemers.”

  “Greg should be the one to tell you.” I didn’t know what to say. There was a lot I wanted to tell Nadine, but since Greg was working at the barn, it didn’t seem right.

  “Greg won’t talk about the church people at all.” Nadine laughed. “His lips are tighter than the cheeks on an elephant’s behind. You’d think they were all a bunch of cannibals, the way he acts.”

  “I don’t know about cannibals, but they’re some mighty strange folks.” The image of those kids standing around the grave with that blood-soaked towel came back to me. Right along with the thought of Mr. Tom, his brains bashed out. “Alice and I went down there to check on a girl we thought might be mistreated.”

  Nadine’s voice was conspiratorial when she spoke again. “I saw Greg’s back. I didn’t comment on it, but somebody beat the bejesus out of him.”

  I swallowed. Like everything else that had gone wrong this summer, that could come roosting at my door too. “Yeah, I saw his back.”

  “Tell me about the girl. What did you see?”

  While I put the saddle and bridle on Cammie, I told her about the singing dwarf and the hair shearing and Magdeline’s confession, and then about the screams. I finished off with the burial scene we’d just witnessed that morning.

  “Was it a baby, do you suppose?”

  “Alice said it might be, or at least part of a baby. Like before it’s a real baby.”

  “A fetus,” Nadine supplied. “If they beat her hard enough, she could abort. With a horse, sometimes a storm or some severe excitement can result in miscarriage. People aren’t any different.”

  It was a gruesome thought, and Nadine’s willingness to believe such a thing had happened made it seem more probable.

  “Should I go to the police?” I asked. “Alice wanted to.”

  “You don’t have any evidence. Maybe you could sneak to the cemetery and dig up whatever they buried.”

  “It’s right by the church! They’d catch us in a minute. Why don’t you ask Greg?”

  “That boy wouldn’t tell the truth, not about that.” Cammie was perfectly tacked up, and we walked outside into the hot afternoon sun. “More than likely it was some dead animal they found. Maybe a pet.”

  I hadn’t thought about it until Nadine spoke. “They don’t have pets. I haven’t seen a cat or dog around that place.”

  “Well, I’ll gladly give them a few,” she said. “Those dogs are driving me crazy.”

  I hadn’t seen a trace of them around the barn. I wondered if they were house dogs.

  “The cats have all gone wild.” She shook her head with a bemused look on her face. “I’m having more success taming the rats in the barn than I am my own dogs and cats.”

  I laughed. The idea of tame rats was funny.

  “You think I’m kidding, don’t you? I’ve tamed two of the rats in the barn. I’ll show you after we finish your lesson.”

  “Yeah, you can tame rats, but the real question is can you make Jamey Louise work?” I thought I scored a good one with that remark.

  “Oh, Jamey will work.” Nadine smiled a Cheshire cat smile. “I have something she wants very badly. Very badly indeed. And Jamey will work when she’s motivated.”

  “What do you have?” I knew it wasn’t horses, cats or dogs. I couldn’t imagine what Nadine would have that would interest Jamey Louise. I mean Nadine did dye her hair and all, but she didn’t wear gobs of makeup or dress all frilly.

  “I have Greg,” Nadine said softly. “Greg the Redeemer.”

  Now, that was something Jamey Louise would relish. Time alone in the barn with the Redeemer boy. I was awed by Nadine’s brilliance. She had read Jamey through and through. Poor Greg, though. If he didn’t know any bad habits, Jamey Louise would sure enough teach him a few.

  Before I had a chance to answer, Nadine gave me a leg up and told me to put Cammie into a working trot. Since my three rides in Missouri, I had a lot to show her.

  At the end of the hour-long lesson, my legs were trembling but my heart soared. I’d ridden a canter, and Cammie had taken a two-foot jump, all with Nadine’s plentiful praise. Alice and the burial and even Jamey Louise’s imminent arrival were forgotten—at least for the moment of glory.

  It didn’t last long, though. I had just untacked Cammie and was brushing her down when I heard Jamey Louise’s sugary v
oice.

  “Well, well, Bekkah Rich, how did you ever talk Miss Effie into letting you around these horses? Or does she know?”

  “It was a family decision,” I answered. “When I was in Missouri, I went to a stable and started my lessons. Now I’m taking from Nadine.” Bravado was my only weapon. If Jamey Louise thought she had me squeezed up, she’d either try to blackmail me or simply go to Effie for the sheer pleasure of making my life a living hell.

  “I’d like to hear Effie’s side of this.”

  I looked up at Jamey for the first time. My mouth fell open. She was wearing a sun dress, a straw hat with a pale blue ribbon and white sandals. Her chest had been growing.

  “I hope you brought work clothes,” Nadine commented as she walked by leading Caesar. “You’ll get worms working in the stalls in those sandals. You need some good solid shoes like Bekkah’s. And by the way, Jamey Louise, not a word of what goes on here leaves the place. If you go running up and down the road gossiping, I’ll have to fire you.” She snapped the two cross ties. “And I suppose Bekkah would have to entertain Greg then.”

  I wanted to dance. I wanted to sing. I would have kissed Nadine. She’d put a wooden stake in Jamey’s black little heart, and she’d driven it in with a sledgehammer. I turned back to grooming Cammie so Jamey couldn’t see my smirk.

  “I thought I’d help Greg in the loft today,” Jamey said sweetly.

  “You can play in the loft with Greg after you’ve cleaned the stalls. Bekkah will take the right side and you the left. The first one finished gets a free lesson.”

  Jamey had one less horse than I did, but I knew I’d beat her. The idea of shoveling horse manure would slow her down considerably, especially in open-toe sandals.

  “Greg!” Nadine called. “Greg!”

  I’d left him back in the church cemetery. During our lesson I hadn’t seen him arrive either.

  “What is it, Nadine?” His head came over the side of the loft, just above Jamey Louise. A little landslide of hay fell onto Jamey. She brushed at her chest and giggled.

  “Hate to interrupt your work, but it would appear Miss Welford went to a lot of trouble to look nice for you. I thought you might want to see her before she cleans the stalls. I don’t imagine she’ll look the same afterward.” Nadine’s drawl was longer than necessary.

  “Too bad to see such a pretty girl get all dirty,” Greg said slowly. “Such a pretty dress too.”

  He was looking straight down Jamey’s bosom. She sort of squeezed her arms to her sides so that her breasts looked larger. I wanted to groan out loud.

  “Well, Jamey has to learn to dress to work in a barn.”

  “She could take that pretty dress off,” Greg suggested. “In this hot weather it’s easier to work without a shirt.”

  I remembered his whipcord-thin body and the sweat—and the lashes across his back. Jamey Louise giggled.

  “You young folks better behave. Y’all start taking your clothes off in my barn, and I’ll get a bad reputation. Greg, those church people of yours will be comin’ down here and accusing me of all sorts of evil things.”

  Whatever Nadine believed, she wasn’t worried one whit about the church people. Nadine didn’t give one flying damn what anybody thought about her. She’d told me that herself.

  “You can be our baby-sitter, Miss Nadine,” Greg said. He laughed and he sounded more grown-up than when he talked. “The one you got to be worried about is Miss Bekkah Rich. She’ll run home and tattle to her mama if she thinks there’s a whiff of fun going on around here.”

  “I don’t tattle,” I said stiffly. I didn’t know why he had to turn the conversation around on me, except maybe to impress Jamey Louise. And it was working.

  “Miss Effie hardly trusts Bekkah to take a bath alone. She’s afraid she’ll drown in the bath water.” Jamey laughed. “Bekkah’s a titty-baby.”

  “Is that so?” Greg hung out a little farther from the loft. “Her mouth ain’t deformed. Least not yet.”

  Even Nadine laughed. Jamey Louise would pay dearly for her comments. She thought she was such a little charmer. I put Cammie away and got the pitchfork and wheelbarrow from the end of the hall. Nadine had Napoleon tacked up, and she left us to our own devices in the barn. I set to work shoveling, ignoring Jamey and Greg. They were talking at the far end of the barn, where Greg had come partway down the ladder. Jamey Louise had her hand on a wooden rung, and her arms squeezed tight to her sides again.

  “Don’t get a hernia, Bekkah,” she called. “I don’t want any riding lesson, so you can have it.”

  “You’d better get to work.” I kept the rhythm of my shoveling. The stalls weren’t that dirty. There were fresh shavings in them and clean hay.

  “Shovel horse poo? You’ve got to be kidding. Greg’s going to help me, aren’t you, Greg?”

  She spoke with such persuasion in her voice it made me almost retch.

  “And what are you going to give Greg in return, Jamey Louise? What do you have that someone else hasn’t already sampled?” I knew the words were vicious, but they weren’t any worse than what she’d said, at least not in my opinion.

  I was rewarded with a loud burst of laughter from Greg and the sharp sound of a palm meeting naked skin. Whether she’d slapped him on the chest or the face, I didn’t know or care. I only hoped it had been enough to keep him from doing her chores. I moved down to the next stall, where Caesar stayed. He was a big bay gelding with two white stockings. Really magnificent and the most expensive of all the horses. There was something wrong with one of his feet, but Nadine had said it wasn’t serious.

  When I took a pause from the constant lifting of the pitchfork, Jamey was standing at the stall door. “Greg said you and Alice were down at the creek today.”

  “I’ve been taking a riding lesson, and I’m about to get another one because you aren’t doing your work.”

  “He saw you. Both of you.”

  “Good for Greg. Why doesn’t he file a police report?”

  “You’d better stay away from down there, Bekkah. They don’t like you, and they don’t want you there. Everybody on Kali Oka Road knows you and your family are trouble.”

  “Like everybody knows you and your sisters are whores?” I hated to drag Libby and Cora in on the brawl, but Jamey was aiming at my whole family. Fair was fair. Her face went white with fury.

  “Just remember, before you pop a gut, you started this, Jamey. I’m just going to finish it.” I heaved another forkful of manure at the barrel. My aim was off a bit, and a small turd hit Jamey in the arm.

  “Sorry.” I couldn’t hide my smile. “Maybe you’d better stand back. I’m trying to work.”

  Jamey looked at the stain on her arm. She whirled around and marched down the barn aisle toward the water hose. I was tempted to lob another forkful of manure at her, but I didn’t want to mess up the aisle.

  “Nice shot,” Greg said. He was up in the loft just above my stall. “Thanks.” I was burning to ask him what they’d buried that morning.

  “Your friend is cute. Why does she always have that baby?” “It’s her sister. Alice has to take care of her. Mrs. Waltman’s expecting again and she can’t take care of Maebelle.”

  “Well, she’s a cute girl. I like blondes.”

  “I’ll tell her. I’m sure it’ll make her day.”

  Greg chuckled softly. “You don’t like us, Bekkah, but you can’t leave us alone. You’d better be careful what you come down to the end of the road to see. You might see something you don’t want to.”

  “How’s the girl who sings?” I couldn’t help it. “She has a pretty voice.”

  “Yeah, she does. Magdeline has a lot of pretty parts about her. And—”

  “They didn’t hurt her, did they?”

  He stopped talking.

  “I’m not going to tell anybody. I just wanted to make sure she wasn’t really hurt.”

  “What you know and what you think you know are two different things. Stay away from the chu
rch. That’s for your sake and Maggie’s. If they had any idea she was talking to you—”

  “She hasn’t. She hasn’t talked to me or anyone else.”

  “Stay away, and keep your friend and that baby away from there.”

  He went back to his work in the loft, the sound of the pitchfork turning the hay again and again with a brute frenzy. I finished HiJinx’s stall and moved down the line to Heathcliff. I had some thinking to do. For the first time Greg had sounded concerned, as if he was worried something would happen to me and Alice if we went back down there. All of my deepest suspicions were roused again. Maybe Alice and I would have to go to the cemetery and try to dig up that fetus they had buried. That would be enough proof to get the sheriff and the FBI down there to save Magdeline. And maybe even Greg.

  Seventeen

  TWO weeks passed and I didn’t see Alice a single time. None of the Waltmans attended the Sweet Water Methodist Church Fourth of July Dinner on the Ground, even though Alice and I were supposed to sing a duet together. It was an omen that fretted me. Alice’s older sister, Sukey, played the piano for the church, and she never missed an event at the old white clapboard. Sukey was planning on being a missionary to Peru, and she was going “to take the word of God through music to the savages of the rain forest.”

  I wasn’t real certain the rain forest savages were going to like the way Sukey intended to introduce them to Christian music. She pounded down on hymns like “He Lives” and “Onward Christian Soldiers.” Taken from the viewpoint of a savage, those songs might be sort of scary, especially with Sukey, her curly red hair wired in every direction, striking the piano like she meant to bust it apart.

  Since Sukey wasn’t there, Miss Ethel Scarborough played, but she lacked the fervor of the young Miss Waltman. That cut me out too. Without Alice, who could really sing, I wasn’t willing to do it by myself. No one pressed me very hard either. The truth was, the dinner wasn’t much to enjoy without Alice to talk to. Jamey Louise was noticeably absent also. I knew where she was, lurking around the barn and Greg. Not even the sumptuous foods at the dinner could tempt her away from Greg, and I avoided her mama and daddy for all I was worth. I didn’t want to be answering any questions about how I liked working with Jamey Louise. Nadine’s edict about gossip was still in effect, and I didn’t want to be banished for having a loose tongue. Besides, Jamey Louise was keeping her mouth shut tight about my jumping Cammie. As long as she kept quiet, I would too. Mama Betts would say it was a pact made with the devil, and I’d probably have to agree with her.