Once past the Hollerans’ place, I know I’m close. All the fields here have been planted, and the tobacco has rooted itself and is growing. It’s already taller than Daddy’s. Maybe Daddy is cursed, because the crops in his field and this field and that field there, they should be the same. They’re set in the same dirt, the land has the same rise and fall, the same sun shines here as it does on Daddy’s land, but Daddy’s crop is already failing. At the break in the hickories, I stop long enough to draw in a few deep breaths. When my chest has stopped rising and lowering and I know I’ll be able to speak again, I continue up the drive toward the house.
Mrs. Baine has not yet reached her front door when I come upon her from behind. It’s a long walk, all of it uphill, and I’ve been faster, caught her before she’s reached her front door. She stops, probably because of the sound of my footsteps. In the dark, I can’t see the look on her face.
“We got to burn it,” I say.
She nods toward the side of the house and walks up the stairs and disappears through her front door.
I grab handfuls of dried-out pokeweeds growing alongside the house. There’s nothing else. No wood stacked that the boys have cut for winter. No twigs. No fallen leaves. I twist the weeds into thick strands, the closest to kindling I can find, and toss them in the barrel at the corner of the house. Things are dry. It won’t take much to get a flame going. I’ve made a good pile when Mrs. Baine returns with the shirt. The fabric is still warm. She’s taken it off Joseph Carl just now, must have stood by as he unbuttoned each button, pulled it off, folded it over, and gave it to her.
“He wanted a fine and nice shirt to greet me in,” she says as I strike the match I brought from home. “He was going to put it back. Tomorrow, he said. Was going to hang it right back there on the line. He wanted to look nice for me.”
I drop the match in the pile of tangled weeds. The flame spreads quickly until it reaches the heavy cotton. Then it fails, almost goes dark, but the fabric finally catches and the flame takes hold again. Smoke rises, and a light breeze blows it across me. It’ll be in my hair and in my clothes now. Juna will smell it on me.
“She’ll tell Daddy,” I say. “Juna will. And he’ll believe her. He’ll come here looking for Joseph Carl.”
Mrs. Baine backs away from the fire, the glow catching the underside of her chin and throwing shadows that lift up along the edges of her face.
“Where are your boys?” I ask. “Where’s Ellis?”
Mrs. Baine continues to back toward the house. “My boy didn’t do nothing. You know he didn’t.”
“Don’t matter what I know,” I say, dropping in another handful of weeds. “Now that Juna’s said it, Daddy will be coming. You need to get your boys home, Mrs. Baine. You need to hurry on up about it.”
? ? ?
I SEND MRS. BAINE for a shovel when the flames have fallen and the shirt is but a few orange embers. As I wait for her, I look back at the house and I see him there in the window. It’s Joseph Carl, though I was wrong about my being more likely than Juna to recognize him. Had I not known Joseph Carl was inside, I’d have not known the man looking out that window. The curves of his face have been worked away, leaving only bone to give it shape. His small eyes lie deep in their sockets, and his cheekbones flare wide over a narrow, square chin. He lifts a hand and smiles, and that’s the thing I recognize.
After handing me the shovel, and before I’ve dug it even once in the ground, Mrs. Baine is gone, up the porch and inside her house. When the door closes, I hear the latch drop and Joseph Carl is gone from the window. I throw a shovelful of dirt on the last of the fire, lean on the handle, and look down into the barrel. Still seeing a glow, I throw another shovelful.
After the third shovelful of dirt, the fire is gone and there’ll be no sign of it. I press one hand against the top of the barrel. It’s warm but not hot. Soon enough, it’ll be cool to the touch. I lay the shovel against the house, walk around to the front door, step onto the square slab of stone that acts as a single stair and then up onto the porch.
The Baines’ house is narrow. It’s one room wide and two deep. Open the front door and open the back, and a person could see straight through it. I knock and listen for footsteps. The house is silent. I knock again.
“I have to talk to him, Mrs. Baine,” I say, pressing my face to the door so I don’t have to yell. “Now, before Daddy comes.”
I saw the look in Juna’s eyes when she stepped from her bedroom. I thought it was relief that she’d finally remembered, but I know her better than that. Should have known straightaway. Her lids were stretched wide open. She was breathing too heavy for having been in bed. She was happy, though trying to hide it. The fellow in the white shirt was the answer. He was the one she could say caused her trouble. She’d been silent since Daddy carried her home, not because she’d gone too long without water or too much tobacco had leached into her blood. It hadn’t been the sun or the shock. She hadn’t worked out yet what to tell us. She had tried blaming Daddy, but then Mr. Brashear said they saw a fellow. Whatever happened, it was somehow Juna’s doing, but now she had someone else to blame.