The Healing

Chapter 42





Granada was wrenched from her sleep by a frightful scream, and her first thought was that a panther had got into the yard again. After the second scream, she knew it was human. She didn’t dare move or breathe, not wanting to discover its source, afraid it was Polly.

The rain had slacked some and a weak, watery dawn was breaking. The girl peered through the shadows of the room and saw that Polly’s bed was empty. The next scream was louder still.

Granada bolted from her cot and reached for her dress. While she was bringing the shift over her head, she heard the creak of the door hinge. At the sight of Polly her heart gave a leap. The woman was wet and muddy, but she was safe. She was toting her herb sack and the bottom sagged from whatever it was she had gathered during the night.

Granada’s relief yielded to a sharp stab of loneliness. She knew they would never go gathering in the woods again.

The wailing outside was constant now. Whoever it was was scraping her throat raw, unleashing a torrent of outrage and loss. Polly stepped up to the window that opened to the yard. She unhooked the board shutter and flung it back. After a moment she turned to Granada, her face grim. “Come see.”

Granada walked to Polly’s side and looked out across the muddy expanse. A woman was kneeling in the mud, her arms thrown up to the gray morning sky still heavy with rain. Aunt Sylvie hovered over the woman, trying to pull her up from the mire. Then Granada made out the figure.

“Somebody must told Lizzie about her girl,” Polly said, her tone flat. “Don’t you reckon?”

When Granada didn’t speak, Polly, whose gaze was still fixed on the stricken woman, continued. “Listen good to that voice, Granada. Take it deep down in your belly. That’s how a momma feels when her child been stole away.”

Granada stilled her breathing, praying Polly would stop. She didn’t want to know any more about Rubina.

“Hounds found Rubina after she run off last night,” Polly continued. “Course it weren’t too hard for them dogs to tree that poor girl. Rubina saved them heap of trouble by hanging herself from the low limb of a cottonwood. Today Lizzie lost her girl for the second time over.”

Granada reached out and put a steadying hand on the windowsill. She shut her eyes and began shaking her head, refusing to believe any of it.

Polly whipped her head toward the girl. “Look at me!” she commanded.

Granada saw the old woman’s anger flaring like a torch in the dark room.

“What have you done?”

“You killed her baby,” Granada whimpered, with no conviction to her complaint, but still she continued. “That baby was the people, too. Weren’t it?”

Polly’s jaw clenched. “You think you know all about it because you had some dreams. Well, you don’t know nothing. You and your pretty dresses. Eating scraps from the master’s table.” Polly pointed to the yard. “Was it worth the trade?”

Granada’s cheeks burned hot. She shook her head sharply, trying to deny it.

“You’re lying!” Polly spat. “Ain’t nothin’ inside the yam that the knife don’t know. I know everything there is about you.”

Granada took a step back.

“You some kind of woman, ain’t you?” Polly continued to rage. “Don’t you understand yet? Ain’t you figured it out yet? Where all that come from? That house. The fields. The crops. The gold. The mistress and the white boy you love so? Them fancy clothes you miss so bad. Down to the corn bread and molasses and that damned monkey. They all come from the same place. And it ain’t the white man’s God. It ain’t Him that do the groaning and the heaving and the grieving. It’s all been stole. It’s been stole from the same place. That place I’m talking about ain’t nothing but a bloody slit in this world of His. But everybody wants to rule over it. It ain’t for the white man to rule. Ain’t for any man to rule.”

And then Granada knew.

“Yes ma’am, that’s right. And until you can pay it the honor and respect it deserve, weep for it and pray for it. Until you can do that, you best get out of my sight. Go back to the great house. Go back to them that kill what little remembering you got. Give them your yes’s and no’s to swallow down and get fat on. Give them your own children to feed off of.”

Granada began stepping back toward the door, expecting Polly to jump on her at any minute and strangle her.

“That’s right. Walk out the door. You thinking you got what you wanted. You thinking, ‘I’m free of Polly Shine at last.’ ” Her laugh was vicious. “Free! What you know about free?”

From behind her Granada heard the old woman shouting, “For all your born days, until you get to be a crooked old woman, you ain’t never going to be free of Polly Shine.”

What was once given as a blessing had now been hurled as a curse.

• • •

Granada stumbled through the mud, making a wide panicked sweep through the yard, staying as far away as she could from the place where Aunt Sylvie still struggled to lift Lizzie to her feet.

Granada had no idea where to run. She belonged nowhere now. She looked up at the house, wishing that Little Lord would come out and save her like he had promised. She wished he would scoop her up and take her far away on his father’s stallion.

She began crying again. Polly had been so angry. She had never treated her like this before. But of all the things that Polly had said to her, the cut that sliced deepest was her saying that she knew Granada. That she knew everything about her.

No one, ever, had considered Granada important enough to study, to know inside and out. No one would ever again. She would not let them because she herself had learned what they would find, and it revolted her.

Maybe she could hide in one of the stalls on a pile of dry hay. Chester might even tell her what to do, where to go. But when she turned and looked in the direction of the stables, she stopped, not daring to take another step.

Bridger was driving a mud-spattered wagon into the lot, trailed by a troop of hounds. The beasts were growling low in their throats, leaping, furiously trying to get at whatever was wrapped in the tarp.

Another wail rose up from Lizzie, and Granada saw Aunt Sylvie struggling to keep the woman from taking off toward the stable. That’s when Granada knew what cargo the wagon carried.

Bridger stood by the wagon, cursing the dogs. Master Ben rode up wearing his rain slick and dismounted, motioning to one of Chester’s stableboys to lead the steed away. Master Ben then took off in a fast stride with Bridger following close behind, a rope in his hand.

“No,” Granada gasped, when she understood where they were heading.

They didn’t slow until they got to the hospital and then Master Ben busted the door off its hinges with his boot. The sound of wood splintering cracked across the yard.

He stepped aside and let Bridger enter alone. Granada’s heart beat furiously against her rib cage.

“No!” she cried, louder.

A moment later Bridger backed out the door, pulling a taut rope. He gave it a furious yank and Polly came stumbling out, her wrists bound together. She landed facedown in the muck. She tried to stand, but as she was about to regain her balance, Bridger yanked the rope again, sending her lurching another few feet before collapsing once more on the muddy ground.

A sickening chill gripped Granada’s insides as the two men, their prisoner in tow, made their halting progress back to the stable.