A Land More Kind Than Home Read online

  “We better get on home,” I whispered.

  There was a noise like an old car driving fast down the road, and I laid there with my eyes closed and listened. I heard footsteps running through loose gravel and a screen door slamming shut and the sound of my daddy’s voice come through the walls in a room far away from us. The knob turned on the bedroom door, and I wished it was Mama coming to wake us up even though neither one of us was asleep, and I opened my eyes into that soft moonlight with Stump still laying right there beside me.

  “Jess,” somebody said. I looked up and saw Daddy standing in the doorway holding out his hand to me. I couldn’t see his face because he was looking away into the other room where the lights were on. I wanted to tell him about what I’d seen, about how they’d carried him out of the church, that he was in here on the bed with me, but the way Daddy stood there made it seem like it was too dark and quiet for me to say anything at all.

  I climbed down from the bed and walked over to Daddy where he stood in the doorway still looking into the other room, and he took my hand in his and it was rough and dry and he led me into the dining room, and then he was in there with the door closed and I heard him dragging a chair across the floor toward the bed.

  I walked over to the window in the dining room and pulled the curtains back a little and looked outside. It was completely dark out there, but I could make out the shapes of the cars in the driveway and the little trees and the bushes around in the yard. Something caught my eye out by the road, and I looked and saw somebody standing there smoking a cigarette. I watched that glowing orange tip move from their mouth down to their side, and then back up to their mouth again. I couldn’t tell who it was out there, so I walked over to the switch and turned the lights out on the chandelier over the table and the dining room went dark. I walked back to the window and pulled the curtains back again and saw an old, beat-up truck parked out by the road in front of the house where a man stood smoking a cigarette and leaning up against the hood. I knew he must be the man Mama wanted me to call Grandpa. He had his cap pulled low and he looked at the ground, and even though I couldn’t see his face good he still didn’t look one bit like I thought he would. He tossed his cigarette into the gravel and rubbed it out with his boot. Then he folded his arms across his chest like he was waiting for something to happen, and he turned his head and looked in the direction of the ridge on the other side of the road.

  The house had just about gone quiet now, and I could barely hear Daddy through the bedroom door where he was sitting in that chair by the bed and whispering something to Stump. I stared out the window and tried hard to hear what Daddy said, but he was whispering too quiet. But then I heard Mama stirring on the sofa like she was turning over, and I heard Miss Lyle scoot her chair a little closer. I imagined Mama’s face as she opened her eyes and blinked at Miss Lyle like she’d been sleeping and she’d just woke up from a dream. Outside the man Mama said to call Grandpa turned his face away from the ridge and looked down the road and coughed and spit something into the gravel.

  I let the curtain close, and I sat down on the floor and put my back against the wall. I folded my arms over my knees and I rested my head to hide my face, and then I sat there and thought about what Daddy might be whispering to Stump in the next room, and I cried and cried and I just couldn’t get myself to stop.

  THE BEDROOM DOOR OPENED, AND FROM WHERE I SAT ON THE FLOOR I could look under the table and see my daddy’s boots walk across the floor. He walked around the room past the chairs until he stood right in front of where I was sitting. I didn’t look up at him, so Daddy squatted down and put his hand on my head.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said. “Hey, Jess.”

  I finally looked up at him, and I figured my eyes looked good and swollen with all the crying I’d done that day. Daddy looked at me, and then he pulled me to him and I put my face in his shirt. I could smell him now, and he smelled like he always does, like the barn and his own sweat from the collar of the shirt he’s worn while he worked in the field, and for just a minute I felt better because he smelled like him and that meant he was finally there with me. He put his arms around me and hugged me tight. He stood up straight and picked me up and kept on hugging me, and I figured if somebody was watching us it would look funny with my legs hanging so close to the ground, but I didn’t say nothing because right then I liked the way it felt for him to hold me. I kept my face pressed up against his shirt collar, and he carried me through the dining room past the table and into the front room.

  Mama was sitting up on the sofa now with both her feet on the floor. Miss Lyle had gotten up out of her chair, and she sat on the sofa right beside Mama. When Daddy carried me in, they were both already looking up at us like they’d been expecting us to walk in and it had taken us too long to do it. Mama and Daddy just looked at each other.

  “I called the sheriff, Julie,” Daddy finally said to her. “Why hadn’t nobody called him yet?”

  Mama and Miss Lyle just sat there and looked up at him, but they didn’t say nothing. Daddy waited for Mama to answer him.

  “Chambliss tell you not to call?” Daddy asked her.

  “Ben,” Miss Lyle said, “why don’t we just wait until—”

  “Chambliss tell you not to call him?” Daddy asked Mama again.

  “Yes,” Mama whispered.

  There was the sound of another car coming down the road, and Daddy carried me over to the screen door and we both looked out. The moon wasn’t giving off enough light, and Daddy felt around on the wall right inside the door until he found a light switch, and when he flipped it the floodlights came on in the front yard. An old red truck pulled into the driveway behind ours; I could see three men sitting in it. When I looked close, I saw that one of them was Mr. Gene Thompson, and the other two were the men I’d seen smoking out by the road that morning who’d had all that Brylcreem in their hair. The man Mama had told me to call Grandpa had already lit up another cigarette, and he was leaning up against the front of his truck. He didn’t even turn around to see who’d pulled up in the driveway. Mr. Thompson and those men sat in the truck for a minute like they were trying to decide if they should get out or not, but Mr. Thompson finally opened the door and then the driver opened his and they all got out and started walking up the gravel driveway toward the house. The two men I didn’t know were about as old as Daddy, and they still had on their church clothes. Mr. Thompson was walking behind them. His lip had a little bloody scab on it from where Mama had busted it that morning when she was fighting with him and trying to get him to turn her loose.

  Daddy put me down and pushed me toward the sofa where Mama sat. He looked at Mama and Miss Lyle.

  “Y’all lock this door behind me,” he said. “They ain’t coming in here.” He went to step outside, and Miss Lyle stood up and walked toward the door.

  “Ben,” she said.

  Daddy turned around and looked at her, and through the screen I could see Mr. Thompson and those men coming up the driveway.

  “You lock this door,” he said.

  Daddy turned and pushed the screen door open and walked down the porch steps into the yard. The door slammed behind him. Mama hollered out his name and stood up from the sofa and reached for me, but I was too far away for her to catch me and she didn’t even hardly try. Miss Lyle watched, and then she closed the front door and turned the lock. I couldn’t see nothing then, so I went over to the open window on the right-hand side of the door and pulled back the curtains.

  “Jess,” Mama said, “come here and sit down.” I acted like I didn’t hear her. “Jess,” she said again. Miss Lyle stood behind me, and we watched Daddy walk up to Mr. Thompson and those two men. Mama sat back down on the sofa behind us, and I heard her whisper something under her breath, and I knew she was talking to herself and maybe she was even praying.

  Those two men I didn’t know stood in between Daddy and Mr. Thompson, and I could tell they wanted to get by Daddy and go up the porch steps and into the house, but Dad
dy wouldn’t let them.

  “Y’all ain’t going in there,” I heard him say. “Ain’t no reason to be out here in the first place. I’ve already called the sheriff, and he should be here any minute.”

  One of the men tried to go right around Daddy anyway, and Daddy put his hand on the man’s chest and stopped him. The man looked down at where Daddy had put his hand on him, and he slapped it away and kept on walking toward the house. When he did that, Daddy hauled back and punched him right smack in the face and the man’s hands went up to his nose and he stumbled backward into the gravel and fell down right in front of our truck. Before he even hit the ground that other man had ahold of Daddy and they were down on the ground in the yard and wrestling and kicking up grass. Daddy finally got on top of the man, and when he did he started punching him in the face. Mr. Thompson stood behind Daddy and yanked on Daddy’s shirt and tried to pull him off. I could hear him hollering for Daddy to stop, but Daddy just kept on punching that man like he couldn’t even hear Mr. Thompson.

  The man Daddy punched first was on his knees in the gravel, and his nose was busted and bleeding and the blood ran down his face and neck and onto his button-down shirt. He tried to wipe the blood off his face with the back of his hands, but it just kept on pouring out of his nose. He looked over to the yard where Mr. Thompson was trying to pull Daddy off the other man, and he put his hand down on the ground like he was about to stand up. I heard somebody hollering my daddy’s name, and I looked up at the road and saw my grandpa running down through the grass toward the house. The man on his knees looked up too, and when he did my grandpa swung his leg and kicked the man right in the face just like he was kicking a ball. The man’s nose made a sound like a tree limb snapping in two, and his head whipped around like it had come loose from his neck. He fell onto his back in the gravel, and he just laid there and I could see his chest puffing air like he’d just finished running as fast as he could and he couldn’t catch his breath. His arms and legs moved around through the gravel like he was trying to make a snow angel right there in the driveway, but he didn’t try to get up again.

  My grandpa pushed Mr. Thompson up against the side of our truck, and Mr. Thompson stayed there and watched my grandpa try to get Daddy up off the man he was hitting.

  “Ben,” I heard my grandpa say. “That’s enough.” My daddy’s fist was covered in blood, and his shirt was turned red from the man’s bloody face. “Stop it, Ben,” my grandpa said. He got Daddy up on his feet, and my daddy shook loose like he was going after Mr. Thompson now. “Goddamn it, that’s enough,” my grandpa said. He wrapped his arms around Daddy and tried to keep him from getting away. Daddy got free and turned around and pushed my grandpa in the chest.

  “Get off me!” he screamed. “Don’t you ever touch me! Ever!” Daddy pushed my grandpa again, and then he turned around and faced the house and when he did I could see that he was crying. He put his hands over his eyes, and I saw they had blood all over them. He walked out toward the road where my grandpa’s truck was parked. My grandpa just stood there and watched him, and then he turned and looked at Mr. Thompson.

  “Y’all need to go,” he said. “There wasn’t no reason for you to have come out here to start with.”

  Miss Lyle stepped away from the window and unlocked the door and opened it and looked outside.

  “Wait, Gene,” she told Mr. Thompson. “Let me get something to clean them boys up. After that y’all need to leave. Ben called the sheriff, and he’ll be here real soon. He don’t need to see any of this. It’s just going to make it worse than it already is.”

  Miss Lyle closed the door and turned around and walked across the front room toward the kitchen. I could hear her in there opening and closing drawers and running water in the sink. She must’ve told them old people what had happened outside because I could hear them fussing and I could hear the sound of their chairs being pushed back from the table. Mama still sat on the sofa. When I looked at her, she stood up and walked over to me at the window. She pulled me to her, and I hugged her around the waist. We stood there and looked out at the yard where Mr. Thompson helped those men stand up and checked to see how bad they’d been hurt. Daddy was almost out of the reach of the floodlights at the top of the road, but I could see him leaning his head down on the hood of my grandpa’s truck, and his shoulders were shaking like he was crying. My grandpa stood in the center of the yard. His back was to us, but I saw him reach into his shirt pocket and pull out a pack of cigarettes. He shook one out and lit it and looked out at the road like he was watching Daddy too.

  DADDY WAS STILL OUT THERE WHEN THE SHERIFF PULLED UP WITH the red and blue police lights spinning on top of his car. He parked behind my grandpa’s truck and turned off the lights and got out and left his door open, and then he leaned in and picked up a cowboy hat where it had been sitting on the seat beside him. He put it on. I could see him good with the light coming from inside his car. He was about as old as my grandpa; his cowboy hat was white, and his brown button-down shirt was wet where his armpits were sweating. The little silver star on his chest shone when the light caught it. He left his arm propped up on the car door, and he just stood there and looked out at the yard.

  Miss Lyle and two of those old women were out there with wet washcloths wiping the blood off those men’s faces. Somebody had given one of those men a sandwich bag full of ice, and he was holding it up to his nose.

  “I think it’s broke,” I heard one of those old women tell him.

  My grandpa sat on the porch steps smoking and watching Daddy out at the road. When Mama saw the sheriff, she walked through the dining room to the bedroom where Stump was still laying on the bed and she closed the door behind her. Before she left she told me to stay inside. I asked her if Daddy was crying, but she just told me to leave him alone and not bother him. I figured she’d never seen him cry either and it had probably scared her too.

  I heard the sheriff walking through the gravel, and then I could just barely see him moving like a shadow until he stepped into the grass and the floodlights hit him and made that little star on his chest shine. While he walked he looked over his left shoulder out at the road, where I knew my daddy was standing.

  “What in the hell happened here?” the sheriff asked. He said it like anybody who wanted to could try and give him an answer. Mr. Thompson looked up at him and pointed out to the road where Daddy stood by my grandpa’s truck.

  “We just came out to extend the sympathy of the church,” Mr. Thompson said. “We came out in the spirit of faith and fellowship, Sheriff, and that man attacked us.”

  The sheriff looked at Mr. Thompson, but he didn’t say anything to him, and then he walked over to the man who held that bag of ice on his nose. The sheriff reached out and picked up the hand that held the bag and he looked close at that man’s face where it was busted. He squinted his eyes like he was concentrating on what he was looking at, and then he looked over at Miss Lyle where she was trying to get the other man’s face to stop bleeding. The man Miss Lyle was working on had his eyes almost swollen shut, and there was a big, bloody cut under one of them. The sheriff let go of the man’s hand and the bag of ice dropped back on his nose. He let out a groan like he’d just been punched again.

  “Well, I’m sorry if y’all came all the way out here and got your feelings hurt,” the sheriff said. “But that man’s just found out that he’s lost his son, so I ain’t planning on doing nothing about this little disagreement tonight.” He looked at Mr. Thompson. “But if you three want to give me a statement about what happened up at y’all’s church tonight then I’ll be glad to take it.” Mr. Thompson looked over at those two men he’d brought with him, and then he looked back at the sheriff.

  “We don’t know nothing about it,” Mr. Thompson said.

  “You knew enough to come out here and bring these two boys with you,” the sheriff said. “And I find it funny that you don’t know nothing now. Maybe after you saw the law you forgot what drove you to come out here, and tha
t’s fine. There’s nothing I can do about that tonight. But I’d suggest you head back to Marshall and tell Chambliss and anybody who’ll listen that I expect them to be ready to talk as soon as I get things settled tonight.” He stood there like he was waiting for Mr. Thompson to say something, and then he turned away and started walking toward the house.

  “I suppose Pastor will talk if the Lord leads him,” Mr. Thompson said. The sheriff stopped and turned around in the yard and looked at him.

  “Then you’d better pray to God he’s led,” the sheriff said.

  “I can’t rightly say what Pastor will do, Sheriff. I’m sure you’ve heard the good Lord works in mysterious ways.”

  “So does the law,” the sheriff said. “You tell Chambliss and the rest of your people that I’ll be around to see them.”

  The sheriff turned to walk up the porch steps, and when he did my grandpa looked up at him. The sheriff stopped and held up his hand to block out the glare from the floodlights, and then he stared hard at my grandpa. My grandpa stared right back at him. It was quiet except for the sound of the slow footsteps crunching in the gravel where Mr. Thompson and those two men were walking out to their truck.

  “So you’re back in town,” the sheriff said to my grandpa. He lowered his hand, and the light hit him in the eyes again. He looked from my grandpa up to me where I stood behind the screen door.

  “You figuring to stick around this time?” the sheriff said.