Annie stares down on them. “The store?”
He shakes his head. “You find out where those come from, will you? Maybe tell me next time we run into each other.”
“When’ll that be?”
“Not sure,” he says, giving Annie another wave to get on. “But I’m supposing it’ll be soon enough.”
19
1936—SARAH AND JUNA
IT’S BEEN FIVE minutes, maybe ten, since folks learned Joseph Carl is already dead. Someone gathers Juna and me. A hand cups the small of my back and must do the same to Juna because we move forward together at the same pace and in the same direction. I think it must be Daddy, but the hand is strong and firm and certain. It’s not Daddy.
Our smoky breath comes more quickly, filling the air around us. The hand forces me ahead, faster with each step. It guides us beyond the gallows. Folks, their heads tilted up so they can shout at Sheriff Irlene and the others, stumble aside and allow us to pass. I look up to see who has come for Juna and me, and I trip over one of the many people. The hand grabs the back of my collar and gives a yank, saves me from falling. It’s John Holleran, staring straight ahead. I ask him what is happening. Where’s Daddy? Where are you taking us? He doesn’t answer.
John walks with us until we reach the sheriff’s office. He shoves at the men who shout questions and slaps away the pencils and paper they wave in our faces. Someone asks would we be still a moment for a picture and John knocks a camera to the ground. It shatters at our feet. The door to the small office opens, we stumble through, and it closes behind.
Abigail Watson is the first person I see once inside. She sits in the same chair where Juna had sat the night Sheriff Irlene first arrested Joseph Carl. A silver tray rests on her lap. Joseph Carl’s final meal, except he never ate it and the tray is still full. It’s Mrs. Brashear’s cornbread smothered with beans and a sliced melon. Abigail’s grandparents must have dropped her here and then gone on to the hanging. I stare at the tray and wonder where Mrs. Brashear managed to find melon. What a shame Joseph Carl never got to enjoy it.
By the time I have pulled off my jacket, scarf, and gloves, John Holleran is gone. I swing around, looking for him, call out his name. I look to Abigail, and she points one slender finger at the door. She’s wearing white gloves as she might for Easter or on Christmas Eve. She means to tell me John is gone. When she lowers her hand and places them both back in her lap, I glance around the rest of the room.
While John is gone, Daddy is still here. From the looks of the room, he’s been railing, throwing things, and likely cursing. His hat has been knocked to the floor, his hair sticks to his forehead where he’s sweated, and his chest is pumping like he just finished an uphill climb. He’s upended a lantern, its slender chimney broken in two large pieces. A chair lies on its side, a stack of papers is scattered across the floor as if blown from the desk by a gust of wind, and a three-legged stool now has only two legs. At the sight of me, he reaches for my hand and drags me across the floor.
“No, Daddy,” I say.
He reaches for Juna too, but she is ahead of us and already stands outside the back room. The door is open, and I see the soles of two boots. I pull against Daddy, lean away with all my weight. Juna glances back and then walks inside, where Joseph Carl is laid out on a table, laid out there so Daddy and Juna and I can see for certain he’s dead.
Daddy says we have to see for ourselves and that we have to touch Joseph Carl or he’ll haunt us all the rest of our days. Juna nods as Daddy says this and walks farther on into the room. I don’t move, so Daddy grabs me again, this time with both hands, drags me through the open door, and I wish John Holleran were here.