A song from Miss Loretta Lynn bubbles up soft inside my head. When I figure what she sings, I smile sad. It’s her hit with Mr. Ernest Tubb called “Mr. and Mrs. Used To Be.” She’s singing it slow in my head, and in that song Mr. Tubb sings tender bout his woman leaving and the good at the start that’s gone bad. I don’t know why Miss Loretta picked that song to bother me by. It don’t fit for me and Roy but it’s still a pretty tune.
I rinse my chipped coffee cup in the sink and put on Daddy’s hunting coat, humming easy with Miss Loretta. The long cuffs hang over my fingertips. I walk to the shed for a shovel with Percy by my side, then down the dirt trail to the ditch where hemlock grows. I hear gunshots and wonder if it’ll be rabbit or squirrel coming home for Roy Tupkin’s last supper. I push the pointy shovel deep into the soil. Pull out the roots, shake off the dirt, and fill the hole. Drag the shrub home and free the roots with a hatchet and hide the rest in a gully under dead leaves.
“You work smart, girl.”
Daddy’s back! I clutch at my heart in joy to hear him again.
Daddy, where you been?
“I been close. Watching. Waiting for you to turn brave.”
Today’s the day. Don’t go way.
“I won’t miss it for the world. I’m here, sweet girl. Now you be careful of that mousy smell when you boil them hemlock roots. Don’t wanna tip him off.”
Birdie give me the recipe. Percy’s gonna help.
I fill a wash pan to the top with chopped hemlock roots. Then fill the wash pan with water so the poison roots soak. I scrub them roots clean, then scrub em again, rubbing off the purple skin to the white flesh of the root. I dump the lot into my canning pot. Birdie says the secret to good hemlock poison is a eagle’s claw dropped into the roiling water. She says, “The hemlock roots gonna turn him mighty sick, but this here eagle’s claw tears out the heart of a evil man. Roy Tupkin’s gonna die for sure.”
Now, back inside the trailer, the water boils and the plan cooks.
? ? ?
I go out in the yard, get down on my knees—careful to spring the steel trap under leaves guarding Roy Tupkin’s private hooch he don’t share with nobody—then carry the jars inside, unscrew the metal tops, and pour a cup from each jar down the drain.
I strain the boiled hemlock root through muslin three times like Birdie said to, then strain it again for luck till the poison is as clear as spring water and the eagle claw sits cooling on the counter. I pour a cup of poison in each jar and swirl it in the likker. To my nose, it smells like hooch, but my hands shake when I screw lids back on the jars and wipe the outside with a rag. It won’t do for me to break a jar, so I breathe deep and slow down.
“This gonna work?”
It’ll work, Daddy.
It’s gotta work.
I put the jars back—alongside the stink of a dead rat Percy brung me—reset the trap, and cover my tracks. Wash up at the sink and scrub the poison pot with extra elbow grease. Put on cabbage to cook to cover the hemlock smell. Change into a clean dress and put on a thick sweater against the chill of the last day of October.
Birdie told me, “Tonight that harvest moon will rise. A watching moon. A blue moon on All Hallows’ Eve to turn midnight into daylight. Nights like this, Sadie, don’t come but a handful of times. A army of haints is gonna walk these hills in the moonlight. They help you if you ask em to.”
It’s how come I picked tonight to kill Roy Tupkin.
? ? ?
I run a comb through my hair, being careful of the sore knots on my head. Then I sit at the Formica table with my knees together and my backbone straight. Percy sleeps on my lap and warms my empty belly. I wait as light leaks outta the sky, and I hum. When I listen, I find I’m humming Patsy Cline’s big hit, “I Fall to Pieces,” and I stop and fall silent cause that message won’t serve me right today. I can’t fall to pieces when I gotta keep it together.
The silence round me feels different from other days. It’s peaceful and heavy at first, like a crazy quilt made of all the hurts of my seventy-one days as Roy Tupkin’s wife, but now I add worry to the border of silence and can’t help myself.
I wonder… When I go to church will sin sit on my skin like scabs? Will Preacher Perkins point a finger at the dark in my heart? Will Miss Shaw shut me outta her days? Will Aunt Marris love me still?
I wonder… Did I get rid of all the pieces of my crime? Did I cover my tracks good? Will Roy know his private hooch got moved and tastes different? Is the trap set right? Did I make a dumb mistake that’ll mean the death of me?
Sweet Jesus, help me. I clutch my hands together in desperate prayer. I promise to be good after this. All I want is to not get beat up. Find my special life. Live up to my potential. Read by myself. Kill Roy Tupkin.
If I live through this night and days beyond and get Roy buried in the ground, I’ll sell jelly at the roadside like I done before. I’ll help Miss Kate at school. Tattler can help find me a dog to keep me safe. That dog can stay inside when weather’s harsh and I need the beat of a strong heart beside me.
Percy stretches out his hind leg, eyes closed, body soft.
Life’s gonna be different, Percy.
Percy likes it when I rub behind his ears.
We won’t live scared. Won’t watch for the kick of that man’s boot. The snap of his temper. The strike of his hand. We’ll sing with Miss Loretta every day if we want to.
If we wait a little longer.
If my plan works. Oh, merciful Lord, please make my plan work.
? ? ?
A voice flies outta the air. “Sadie, you in there?”
I jump from the sound. It won’t Roy Tupkin or Daddy’s voice. My heart thumps against hurt ribs. I stand too quick, knock Percy off my lap. My knees give way and I have to push against the table to stand.
“Sadie, come out here,” Billy yells louder. “Roy done got shot.”
My hand quivers when I reach for the knob and open the door. The harsh setting sun hurts my eyes, and I shield em with trembling fingers to make out shadowy shapes in the yard. I step down from the trailer into the chilled twilight where Roy Tupkin’s body lays on a makeshift stretcher of saplings roped together with vines. Over his heart, his camouflage coat has a dark patch the size of a pie.
I circle the body, confused at what I see. All this time I wished the devil would take Roy Tupkin’s sorry soul into the hellfires and leave me be. Now this.
“What happened?” I ask in a small voice with arms limp by my sides, eyes on Roy’s body.
“I brung him home for you. The rifle went off when…”
Billy’s voice fades and my ears listen for scraps of Daddy, but he picked now to be gone again. Every hair on my body itches, and a sick shudder runs through me. I let out a big breath that turns cloudy in the frosty air.
Does this mean I been saved? That I can break the proof against the rocks? That my crime will seep into the soil? That I can tell Miss Shaw my life finally turned into something awful good?