Chapter 21 Conundrum
Conundrum
Kate Shaw
Loretty Dillard stays missing, and the tragedy is a wet wool blanket that weighs us down.
For all our united efforts on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, the sun rises and sets without finding that child.
Not a clue, not a hint, not a scrap of hope.
We grieve with every ragged breath we take, and the pall in the community is worse than when Birdie died.
Saturday starts with a desperate plan. Eli and the Dillards have made a list of all the people Loretty helped by collecting their sins and burying them at the laurel hell.
We cross off names of folks who are part of the search teams, then volunteers visit the ones who didn’t come forth.
They ask questions and look for signs that the child is there to help somebody else.
Everyone is on high alert, and the woods that surround Baines Creek feel perilous.
Sunday, I’m told church attendance swells to an all-time high to show support for Buck and Sadie, who shuffle in and sit crumpled over, pitiful in their sorrow.
Today we’re at the one-week mark, and I sit in the schoolhouse by the telephone, hoping for a good-news call that she’s found.
I sit in a neglected sea of Birdie’s books where I worry for Sadie’s sanity.
She was the first person to welcome me ten years ago, me scared of my shadow, her hungry for more.
She offered to help me that first day in exchange for learning to read.
I saw a pregnant, barefoot girl in a thin cotton dress carrying a dog-eared magazine with a big-haired woman on the cover.
But I discovered that Sadie was a warrior who had battled dangers I couldn’t fathom till she stood firm in my cabin on a day the rain wouldn’t stop.
Her drunk husband wailed outside like a spoiled little boy, and Sadie fought hard to keep her unborn child safe.
She lost that precious baby, then was widowed and life gave her new choices.
She married kindly Buck Dillard, and on her wedding day she carried a red rose from Aunt Marris’s miracle bush that shouldn’t grow this high.
I thought Buck’s love would protect her from ever being hurt again.
I thought Sadie had suffered enough for one lifetime.
Now I realize that loving someone gives the Fates fresh ammunition.
Today, determined women file into Eli’s church and join Fleta, Alice, Laura June, and Ima Jolly, who pray with greater zeal. They make a noisy spectacle that makes me ponder Eli’s god. Why don’t they see that their god has turned a deaf ear to their plight?
But they don’t doubt. They pray harder, and begging for help is part of the process. Some of them are kneeling on the rough wood floor with arms raised and eyes closed while their arthritic knees throb and swell. Enduring pain calls god’s eyes toward them. At least that’s what they believe.
I’m angry. Angry that the world would be so cruel to my friend who has already known unfathomable loss.
Loretty is Sadie’s oldest living child, who was named for her big-haired hero.
Loretta Lynn hailed from Butcher Holler, Kentucky, and that famous Loretta inspired young Sadie and gave her a reason to rise up and better herself.
But now the talons of despair have Sadie in their grip again.
It’s harder to hold on to hope as we pass the one-week mark.
The next day, through the open door of the schoolhouse, I watch Lydia’s yellow Jeep pull into the clearing.
She has come by invitation, and steps out wearing a denim pantsuit and oversize sunglasses.
She glances toward the church and the determined voices inside spouting Scripture.
A young girl with hair cropped short as mine gets out of the passenger side.
She wears faded jeans, a T-shirt, and leather combat boots.
Her ears, lips, and eyebrows are pierced with tiny steel rings like a stapler holding her life together.
“Thanks for coming,” I call from the doorway.
“Happy to help, but truly sorry for the tragic circumstances. This is my niece Gus,” Lydia says then looks back at the church. “What’s going on in there?”
“They pray for Loretty. Every day. It’s something to do.”
“Has there been any news at all?”
“Not a snippet. Now folks are venturing out further and praying louder for her return, but nothing has turned up. The not-knowing is pure hell. Those believers are doing what they can, but we’re running out of ideas that make sense. It’s like Loretty up and vanished.”
The niece clutches her heart in sympathy, and Lydia says, “I wish we could help.”
“Having you here looking at Birdie’s books that I’ve neglected is helping, and it’ll pass the time. I can’t think of a single thing I can do now but wait. The preacher will stop by later with an update.”
“Kate, I can’t believe this tiny settlement has been dealt another blow.”
I nod. “If I were superstitious and believed in curses, this is something big.” I head inside the schoolhouse with Lydia following. The girl goes to the Rusty Nickel, probably for a soda and a snack, and I close the door as the lamenting prayers in the church turn to wails.
And there they sit. The lot of them lined up as best I could figure.
I had randomly thumbed through looking for order.
Lydia pulls white cotton gloves from her pocket—the kind I used to wear to tea and church when I was a girl living under my mother’s formal scrutiny, and I cringe at sour memories.
Those gloves were always too small for my oversize hands.
They pinched my fingers and cut off circulation.
When I tried to loosen their grip, Mother’s glare scorched my cheek with shame.
I let my fingers go numb. I like that Lydia is showing respect for Birdie’s works, but I never thought to wear gloves.
Birdie never asked me to. I don’t think I even washed my hands.
Lydia walks across the room to the book that started it all and scratches her right palm through her glove.
Out of all of them she knew which one came first, and she looks at it with wonder, and that makes me wonder, too.
For the first time I see Birdie not as the wrinkled prune of a witch but as a girl with a lithe frame and clear eyes.
Then it strikes me that the pages I read held little about her beginning.
It was as though she was dropped from the stars to fend for herself.
It is only the mention of the Cherokee Gray Wolf when she was young, the crows that saved her in the blizzard, and the arrival of Samuel that are personal.
If there is more, it’s hidden in other pages or written in gibberish I can’t understand.
Lydia carefully opens the first book and sees something I don’t. She whispers, “I need to sit,” and I slide a metal folding chair toward her. The frame is bent and it sits cattywampus.
“You all right?”
“A drink of water, please,” she murmurs.
I fill a jelly jar from the water bucket and bring it to her. Lydia looks both stunned and flushed. She looks toward the closet. “What’s that buzzing sound? You hear that? It sounds like a hive of bees.”
“I hear the prayer group but that’s all.”
“How did all this end up here?”
I pull a second chair close to the plywood table.
“You know where her trailer was, so after she was buried nearby in a family plot, Eli and I and some of the boys packed her books in cardboard boxes and brought them here. They stayed locked in that closet during the last week of school, then we spread them out on plywood. I did the best I could to organize them. It’s a good thing we moved them because her trailer burned down the next day. ”
Lydia’s eyes grow wide, horrified. “What? All this could’ve been lost?”
“Without Birdie to protect her things, all it would take would be lamp oil and the strike of a match. The sheriff didn’t try hard to find the culprit.
He said what was done was done. I’m sure you’ve noticed the burned ruins next door.
That used to be the teacher’s place before I came.
Those ruins and Birdie’s serve as reminders that folks up here take matters in their own hands.
This place is above the law, literally, and there are few consequences. ”
“What did Birdie tell you about all her books?”
“Sometimes she’d have me sit and read a page or two, wanting me to learn something in particular. One of her rules was that a book could never leave her place.”
Lydia chuckles. “Sounds like my daddy and his rules about our family library.”
“After Birdie died, taking her books from the trailer felt wrong. Like we’d violated them or at the least disobeyed her.”
“But lucky you did,” Lydia drags a finger on the leather. “You ever see her make one of these? The paper and ink? You think she made all these on her own?”
“Eli and I talked about that. We think she made them but we didn’t see her do it.
In the ten years I knew her, she added new books without much fanfare.
But this is a close-knit community, so word would’ve gotten out if anybody helped or supplies came through the mail.
I don’t think anybody else was involved.
We did find a stack of her special writing paper and stuff. ”
“Where’s that?”
“In the closet with the chest.”
Lydia looks at the locked door. “There’s a chest in the closet?” and she sounds idiotic repeating words as though her hearing is off. “May I see it?”
“Sure, but I need help getting it out.” I unlock the door, remove the quilt, and slide to the inside. Lydia is on the outside, and we carefully carry the chest into the light.
“Oh my stars,” she exclaims when she sees the workmanship. “This is amazing. What in the world was this doing in Birdie’s trailer?”
“Don’t have a clue.”
At that moment, Lydia’s niece and Eddie come in with sodas and Moon Pies. Gus says, “What’s that buzzing sound? Y’all got bees in here?”