She had arrived at the courthouse near dusk, the sky whorled with orange clouds. The rain had tapered enough for swifts to return to the clock tower, wheeling and swooping around the dome roof. Silver paused at the flagpole to catch her breath. She’d expected to see curious or perhaps angry searchers but the lawn was deserted, only a few vehicles at the curb. She’d thought they were leaving the farm to come to the courthouse but maybe Ellard had already run them off. He would probably send Silver away as well, but she meant to try. She was about to make for the courthouse doors when they burst open. A young fair-headed man came down the steps. Rushing across the lawn to the street he slid and pitched forward, skidding on his face. He lay there without getting up, his mouth plugged with the earth and grass and water of Yuneetah as if he was drowning in it. Silver was too astonished to go to him. Finally the young man picked himself up, coughing and wiping his face, then limped on to the curb and drove away. Silver wanted to run into the building and demand to know what had happened. But she forced herself to take care up the cobbled walk, treacherous with leaves. As she reached for the door a lawman with a badge pinned to his shirt was coming out of the building. “Nobody’s getting in here tonight,” he said. “You’ll have to come back in the morning.” Then he went down the steps to a car like Ellard’s, a gold star on its side. Silver paced back and forth for a while under the portico wringing her hands, thinking of begging Ellard to let her see Amos but knowing better.
Now she continued down the footpath winding around the side of the mountain until she saw a glow through the limbs clustered over the trail she was following, the only light visible for miles. The cabin in the clearing looked like a haven when she came upon it, sheltered by walnut trees and wild chokecherry bushes, a curl of chimney smoke hanging over the shakes of the roof. Silver tramped up the steps and pounded on the plank door. “It’s Silver Ledford,” she cried out. There was a long lapse although Silver knew Beulah was in there. When the old woman answered she sounded reluctant, like she would rather have hidden from her company.
“Come on in,” Beulah allowed.
Silver pushed open the door then poked her head inside, the blustery draft she brought with her riffling the calendar pages tacked over Beulah’s bed in the corner and swaying the bundled herbs in the rafters. Her eyes moved over the split-log walls, the fireplace with a heap of cinders spilled onto the hearth. She smelled cooking. When she turned her head the old woman was taking a jar from a pie safe. She crossed the threshold, her shoes tracking the floor. It had been years since she entered a home not her own. “I hate to bother you late like this,” she said.
“It ain’t no bother. I been gone all day. I’m just now getting done with supper.”
“I won’t stay long.”
“I got squirrel. Tastes pretty good if you ain’t had meat in a while.”
“Nothing wrong with squirrel,” Silver said. She looked down at herself, still wearing the liver-colored dress, her legs streaked with silt. But Beulah didn’t seem to mind her state.
“Here’s some apple butter, too.” She opened the jar she held in her hand, popping the seal. “This is the last of it, but I can’t think of no reason to save it.”
“Neither can I,” Silver said.
Beulah took down crockery from a shelf and a pan of biscuits from the sideboard. She dished what was left of her supper onto a plate and Silver’s mouth filled with water. She hadn’t eaten. Beulah pulled out a chair but Silver hunkered before the waning cook fire with her food as she did at home. Beulah sighed and took the seat herself. “I never saw such a day. Did you?”
Silver took a bite of the stringy meat. “Not that I remember.”
“I never dreamed I’d see you at my door neither.”
“It’s a strange time,” Silver said.
Beulah shook her head. “It surely is.” She watched as Silver gnawed the squirrel bones clean and tossed them one by one into the fireplace. “I reckon we’re the only ones left up here now. I’ve thought about coming to see you sometime. But you don’t seem to like visitors.”
Silver went on chewing, not saying what came into her mind. Amos was about the only visitor she ever had. She looked around the shadowy cabin and thought it was no wonder he had left. He couldn’t have stayed here. The room was too smothering and close. She pictured him in a jail cell and lost some of her appetite. She supposed the reason she hadn’t asked Beulah about Amos yet was that she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to know anymore. Then Beulah put her out of her misery. “Go ahead. You got such a cloud over you, it’s liable to rain in here.”
Silver choked down a last bite. “They wouldn’t let me in to see Amos.”
Beulah studied her lap. “Well. I seen him.”
“Is he all right?”
“He’s alive, but I won’t say he’s all right.”
“I knew it,” Silver said. “Ellard would just as soon kill him as look at him.”
Beulah pulled a handkerchief from her apron. Her eyes when she took off her pointed glasses to dab them were small and naked. “I’m the one that turned him in.”
Silver’s mouth dropped open. “What? Why?”
“I been trying to keep him from hurting hisself or anybody else.”
Silver’s hands trembled as she put aside her cleaned plate. She stared back into the dying fire with her knees gathered up. “There’s no telling what they’ll do to him tonight, much less if this goes to court. They’ll find a way to hang him. Mark my words. Even if Gracie ain’t found.”
Beulah sniffed and put her handkerchief away. “All we can do is wait and see.”
“I need you to tell me, Beulah,” Silver said. “Tell me he wouldn’t hurt a child.”
Beulah shook her head. “I can’t do that. I’m tired of telling.”
“If you don’t believe him,” Silver said, “he ain’t got nobody.”
“I didn’t say I don’t believe him,” Beulah said. “I’m just wore out.”
Silver covered her mouth as if to wipe it. Then she said through her greasy fingers, “If Amos has done something to Gracie, on purpose or not, how am I supposed to live with that?”
When Beulah didn’t answer, Silver raised her head. The old woman was still there, bathed in firelight. She got up heavily from her chair, hands on her back. “Laws, I’ll be glad for this day to end,” she said, eyes wandering to the pile of squirrel bones in the ashes. After another moment Beulah’s crooked fingers went to the pouch around her neck. She opened the drawstring and dumped the bones from it into the fire. They were quickly blackened by the guttering flames.
Silver looked up at her in shock. “Why did you do that?” she asked.
“There ain’t no more future I want to see,” Beulah said.
Silver felt sick to her stomach, like that long-ago evening at supper with her hateful grandmother. She got abruptly to her feet and left the cabin, not even thanking Beulah for the meal. She inhaled the fresh air as she went through the rain, across the lot and back into the trees. Before she lost her nerve she headed down the hollow, past the house where Ellard Moody once lived with his parents and the graveyard where Mary was buried, on to the Walker homestead. Gilded clouds hung over the roof, the moon a smudge behind them. One lamp burned in a front window and Silver made for the lit porch. There were no vehicles parked now at the end of the track. Even the Packard was missing. Silver mounted the porch steps and opened the door without knocking. It couldn’t wait any longer. If Annie Clyde was asleep she would wake her.