Suddenly all manner of things sailed through the air over Ella’s head toward Epps: sticks of furniture, vegetables, bottles, shoes, and rocks. They caromed off the hood, windshield, roof, and the men’s arms as they raised their hands to cover their heads and faces. The sounds echoed through the street.
Epps holstered his gun, and—still bent at the waist—shuffled toward the passenger’s door and climbed inside. The truck rumbled to life and rolled backward away from Ella as if the world were moving in reverse, as if a tide were receding, and although Ella had never seen the ocean before—would never see it—she pictured the dark tide that had flushed her from the mountains and carried her east here to Gastonia, and she realized that it was possible for a tide to recede, to turn back, to relinquish its pull on your life.
One last bottle sailed overhead and crashed to the ground, scattering its shards along the road. The voices of the people behind Ella grew louder, and she turned to face them.
“That’s the singer,” someone said, and “Bessemer City,” another said. “Seen her with Beal this morning,” and “That there’s Ella May.”
Chapter Five
Brother
Friday, April 12, 1929
He had not known it was Gaston County when he arrived in mid-April, had not even known it was North Carolina through which he’d trudged a day earlier. He’d spent a clear, moonless night sleeping in an open field, and when he woke covered in dew he slung his satchel over his left shoulder and picked his way through the rocky eddies of a shallow run of river. Once on the other side, the sun now cresting the horizon, he kept the river on his right and followed the shoreline north, his clothes drying in the warm morning air.
Hours later, the sun directly overhead, he’d walked west until he saw a crossroads where a boy stood beneath a persimmon tree, staring down into a ditch that ran through the high grass alongside the road. Although he was some distance away, the boy must have heard his approach, because he turned and looked at him; then he went back to staring at whatever was at the bottom of the ditch.
“Hello, friend,” he said. He waved, but the boy’s back was turned and he could not see him as he approached.
The boy turned again and looked at him but did not say anything. He wondered if the boy was mute. He was much closer now, and he could see that the boy was no older than ten, barefoot and in overalls, the legs of which had been rolled to his mid-calves. His face was dirty, his blond hair the color of straw.
The boy did not look at him again, not even when he stood beside him and peered down at a black-and-white mutt that lay panting, its dry tongue lolling from the side of its mouth. Specks of blood spattered the white fur around its lips. More blood glossed the dry grass around the dog’s anus. The animal appeared calm. One of its eyes, the only one he could see from where he stood, rotated in the orbit of its socket and repeatedly looked at him, the boy, the sky, and then the tall blades of grass that stirred overhead in the breeze.
“This here your pooch?” he asked the boy.
The boy nodded his head.
“What happened to him?”
The boy shrugged.
“You just found him here?”
The boy nodded his head again.
He looked up from the ditch and touched a branch of the persimmon tree, trailed his fingers through its yellow blossoms. He took in the landscape around him. The river was somewhere behind him, so he did not turn in that direction. Instead he looked toward the bright green trees on the other side of a field, and for a brief moment he wondered what grew in the field and when it would be harvested. The day was clear, but he smelled something in the air. Something damp, clammy, perhaps born of river mud.
“Where are we?” he asked the boy.
The boy lifted his eyes from the ditch and looked around as if getting his bearings.
“Gaston,” the boy finally said.
“Gaston,” he repeated. He looked down at the boy. “Do you mean Gaston County?”
The boy shrugged.
“Mama just says ‘Gaston’ when she says ‘here.’”
“You and your mama live close by?” he asked.
The boy nodded his head, lifted his arm, and pointed down the road that seemed to lead south.
“Your mama got any work needs doing?” he asked.
“She’ll shoot you,” the boy said.
“Excuse me?”
“She’ll shoot you,” the boy said again. “She said she’d shoot the next man who come up from the river.” The boy looked at him. “You come up from the river, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Well,” the boy said, turning his gaze back to the dog, “she’ll shoot you sure enough.”
“Huh,” he said. He looked south, in the direction the boy had pointed, but there was nothing to see.
“I think some old jalopy come through here and run him over,” the boy said.
It took a moment for him to realize that the boy was speaking of the dog. The dog hadn’t moved, apart from the one eye that still looked around at all it could see of the world.
“You think he’s paralyzed?”
“What’s paralyzed?”
“Means ‘he can’t move nothing,’” he said.
“You a doctor?” the boy asked.
“No,” he said. “I ain’t no doctor.”
He dropped the satchel at his feet and held his right arm against his chest and reached down into the ditch to stroke the dog’s rear flank with his left hand. The mutt’s pupil widened. Without raising its head, its eye searched for the source of the touch. It growled, but its growl was low, even.
“I think some old jalopy come through here and run him over,” the boy said again.
“It’s okay, buddy,” he said to the dog. He rubbed the dog again, stopped, looked up at the boy. “What’s your pooch’s name?”
“Roscoe,” the boy said.
“It’s okay, Roscoe,” he said.
It happened quickly, so he did not see if the mutt’s teeth came anywhere near him, but he felt the dog’s body tense for just a moment before it yelped and sprang toward his hand. He fell back onto the road. The dog resettled itself as if it had never moved.
“You see that?” he said.
The boy bent down and stroked the mutt’s head, whispered something into its ear.
“Guess he ain’t paralyzed,” the boy said.
“I guess not.” He stood, dusted off the seat of his pants. “There a town close by here?”
“There’s some castles over there,” the boy said, pointing west.
“Castles?”
“Yep,” the boy said. “Castles.”
The dog closed its eyes, tongued its lips over and over. The boy continued to stroke its head.
“How far you think them castles are?”
“I don’t know,” the boy said.
“How long would it take to walk to there?”
“I don’t know,” the boy said again.
He wondered if the boy was lying about the castles, or if they were something he’d heard of but had never seen. He picked up his satchel, looked west.
“Which way’s them castles again?” he asked.
Without taking his eyes from the dog, the boy pointed west again.
“All right,” he said, slinging his satchel over his shoulder. “I hope your pooch feels better soon.”
He set off down the road. He’d walked a minute or so when he heard the boy’s voice behind him.