who was engaged to one of my sisters. And whose brother, Larry, had wanted me and then kidnapped Mud, and who had—I stopped the thought, but it was the truth. I knew that. Larry had been eaten by the vampire tree. Mixed bag, but I’d take the backup.
The men forming a line in front of me moved aside, just enough to let me through if I shoved hard enough. They’d make it a point to force me to touch them. To be touched by them. I nearly froze at that thought and my leaves rustled against my nape; I wondered if I had leaves growing from the front too. I strode toward the small opening. Two arms, wearing different shades of plaid, reached out from either side of me and shoved the men in front out of my way. Sam and Ben. They shoved them hard, tandem strength, sending the two men closest and the ones next to them stumbling, opening up a clear line for me. I didn’t even have to slow down. As if my backup had planned it.
My heart beating too fast, I walked toward Jed, who was standing on his porch with a shotgun. I stopped at the base of the short stairs and took in the house with its newly painted green front door and shutters, the rocking chair to the side of the door, the windows open, and what looked like the barrel of a rifle in the front corner. Daddy had taught all his womenfolk how to shoot. I had a feeling I had gotten here just in time to stop a bloodbath. And blood on the land in my sister’s condition might be a very bad thing. “Jed,” I said, no emotion in the word.
“Nellie,” he said back.
“You planning to use that shotgun on Esther?”
His eyes narrowed and his mouth firmed. “You’un know better. I been protecting her from her own damn foolishness.”
I raised my eyebrows in a noncommittal you don’t say gesture and waited. When a woman in pants, with a gun, didn’t talk to a churchman, it could be more effective in making him speak than when she cajoled.
“She’s refusing to leave,” he said. “She thinks she owns this house.”
I pursed my lips, thinking, remembering the moment that Esther had stopped talking when she and Mud and I had been discussing her future. Suddenly I wanted to laugh. “Esther,” I said, louder than necessary. “How much was your dowry?”
“Twenty thousand dollars,” she shouted back through the open window.
“What did he do with it?”
“Jed used most of it when he paid for the house.”
My laughter broke through, a single soft chuckle. Most houses passed through family lines. When a new house was needed, it had to be “purchased” from the church in a financial sleight of hand that worked out to a lifetime rental. Twenty thousand dollars was enough to purchase use of a house from the church. “Jed. You accused my sister of infidelity. You got proof? You see her with any other man? You catch her out? And don’t you lie to me. I’m an officer of the law and if I think you’re lying I’ll cart your sorry ass to jail.”
Jed flinched at my use of the word ass. He looked at the small cluster of men standing behind me. His tongue flicked out and touched his lips, top and bottom, in what looked like a nervous tic. Quietly, for my ears only, he said, “Esther’s growing leaves.”
Just as quietly, I said, “Yeah. This church has practiced inbreeding for two hundred years. Things from the old country, from the distant past, are beginning to break through, like the devil dogs. Like the leaves. That your kid in her belly?”
Jed looked out again and then down. “Yeah.”
Sam cursed. Ben spat.
“Say that part loud enough that the men can hear,” I said. “Restore my sister’s reputation or I’ll let my brother rip your guts out.”
Jed’s eyes whipped to Sam and away. Such lies were time-honored reasons for church families to go to war.
“Say it,” Sam ground out.
“Esther’s baby is mine,” he said loudly. “But I’m still divorcing her. She . . . she displeases me.”
“Did she request marital counseling by a church elder?” I asked, just as loud.
“I ain’t spilling my guts to nobody.”
“I ain’t leaving,” Esther shouted. “And if them men try to make me go, I’ll burn the house to the ground.”
Without looking away from Jed, I said, “Sam, you get that information about a portable sawmill?”