? ? ?
IT’S BEEN A year since Jacob left town. Folks say he went to stay with his aunt in Louisville where he could see a decent doctor. Just last summer, he was Jacob Riddle who had an arm like a cannon. The men in town said Jacob could throw a baseball harder than anyone who’d ever crossed the Hayden County line, probably harder than anyone who’d ever crossed into the state of Kentucky. And the taller he grew, the harder he threw. Folks still talk about the day last June when something snapped in his arm. They knew it before the ball hit the catcher’s mitt. The arm that dangled like it had come unhinged would never throw another pitch.
The closer Annie, Daddy, and the sheriff get to the bottom of the hill, the stronger the smell of Grandma’s spice cake becomes. Jacob’s going to smell the cake a person should only be smelling at Christmastime, and worse yet, he’s going to know it’s her day of ascension and that she’d been looking in a well in hopes of seeing her intended.
Jacob must be nineteen now, maybe twenty. Annie first started watching him play ball when she was nine years old and they had just moved in with Grandma. She’d walk all the way into town to watch whenever his team was playing. It wasn’t that she was a fan of baseball, or even so much a fan of Jacob’s, but going to a game meant she was going somewhere where lavender didn’t grow.
Usually the games weren’t all so interesting because Jacob threw one pitch, two pitches, three pitches, and the batter was out. If a player did manage a hit off Jacob Riddle, he damn well knew he’d earned it because Jacob never threw with pity. The few times a fellow put his bat to one of Jacob’s pitches, Jacob covered his mouth over with his glove, but not before Annie saw the smile on his face. He was smiling because that hit meant he got to stay on the mound a bit longer.
There were a few games during Jacob’s last season when Annie wondered if her liking to watch him throw the way she did—if her getting to know his motion so well she knew if the ball sailing toward the catcher would skim the outside of the plate, float with no spin, or dip just before reaching the batter—meant she was falling in love. But then something in that arm snapped, he left town, and she didn’t much think about him again, which probably meant it hadn’t been love.
Annie stops worrying about spice cake and wells and what the sheriff might tell Ryce over the supper table tonight when Daddy starts walking faster, so fast he passes Annie up. The sheriff passes her up too, and he’s red-faced again and can’t speak for breathing so hard.
“Someone’s in there,” Jacob says, pointing toward the house.
He jogs toward the sheriff as he says it again and yet again, shouting just loud enough to be heard but not so loud that whoever is inside the house will hear. Even in a uniform, his shirt tucked, his belt buckle shining, both laces on his boots tied up tight, those arms and legs of Jacob’s don’t quite fit as well as they did when he stood up on that mound.
“What do you mean?” Daddy starts drifting toward the house. “Who’s in there?”
“You hold up, John,” the sheriff says, and when he reaches Jacob, he bends at the waist, hands on his hips, and draws in one deep breath after another. “You wait for me, John.” And then, to Jacob, he says, “Who do you say is in there?”
“Not altogether certain.” Jacob gives a single nod in Annie’s direction as if to say hello. “Only know the family likeness.”
Annie was right. It’s Aunt Juna. She’s come home.
“Spit it out, son,” Sheriff Fulkerson says. “Who is it?”
“Sir,” Jacob says, “I believe it’s Ellis Baine, sir.”
Even though the sheriff hollers at him to stop, Daddy starts to jog and then gets to running so fast his hat flies off. He jumps the three stairs leading onto the porch, yanks open the door, and disappears inside. Sheriff Fulkerson straightens, blows out one deep breath that makes his lips flutter, and tells Jacob to hurry on after Daddy.
“See to it John doesn’t get himself in any trouble,” he shouts as Jacob follows Daddy up the stairs and into the house.
? ? ?