Shortly after the men have left Sargeant's place, the citizens of Ruby arrive at the Oven. The rain is slowing. The trash barrel swirls with debris. The stream has crested but doesn't overflow its banks. It seeps underground instead. Rain cascading off the Oven's head meets mud speckled with grout flakes washed away from bricks. The Oven shifts, just slightly, on one side. The impacted ground on which it rests is undermined. In trucks and cars the citizens go to meet the men. Neither of the sisters needs persuading, for both have known something awful was happening. Dovey asks Soane to drive. Each is silent with loud, rocketing thoughts. Dovey has watched her husband destroy something in himself for thirty years. The more he gained, the less he became. Now he may be ruining everything. Had twenty-five years of rampant success confused him? Did he think that because they lived away from white law they were beyond it? Of course, no one could ask for a more doting husband and as long as she ignored the unknowable parts, their marriage seemed perfect. Still, she misses the little foreclosed house where her Friend visited. Only once since K. D. took it over has he come to her and that was in a dream where he was moving away from her. She called; he turned. Next thing she knew, she was washing his hair. She woke, puzzled, but pleased to see that her hands were wet from the suds.
Soane is chastising herself for not having talked, just talked, to Deek. Told him she knew about Connie; that the loss of their third child was a judgment against her-not him. After Connie saved Scout's life, Soane's resentment against her evaporated and, because the two of them had become fast friends, she believed she had forgiven Deek also. Now she wondered whether her fear of suffocating in air too thin for breathing, her unrelieved mourning for her sons, keeping the ache alive by refusing to read their last letters were ways of punishing him without seeming to. In any case, she was certain that routing the Convent women had something to do with their marriage. Harper, Sargeant and certainly Arnold wouldn't lift a hand to those women if Deek and Steward had not authorized and manipulated them. If only she had talked twenty-two years ago. Just talked. "What do you think?" Dovey broke the silence.
"I can't."
"They wouldn't hurt them, would they?"
Soane cut off the wipers. There was no need for them now. "No," she answered. "Just scare them. Into leaving, I mean."
"People talk about them all the time, though. Like they were… slime."
"They're different is all."
"I know, but that's been enough before."
"These are women, Dovey. Just women."
"Whores, though, and strange too."
"Dovey!"
"That's what Steward says, and if he believes it-"
"I don't care if they're-" Soane couldn't imagine worse. Both became quiet.
"Lone said K. D. is out there."
"He would be."
"You think Mable knows? Or Priscilla?" asks Dovey.
"Doubt it. Hadn't been for Lone, would we?"
"It'll be all right, I guess. Aaron and Pious will stop them. And the Beauchamps. Even Steward won't mess with Luther." The sisters laughed then, small hopeful laughs, soothing themselves as they sped through glorious dawn air.
Consolata wakes. Seconds earlier she thought she heard footsteps descending. She assumed it was Pallas coming to nurse the baby lying beside her. She touches the diaper to see if a change is needed. Something. Something. Consolata goes chill. Opening the door she hears retreating steps too heavy, too many for a woman. She considers whether or not to disturb the baby's sleep. Then, quickly slipping on a dress, blue with a white collar, she decides to leave the child on the cot. She climbs the stairs and sees immediately a shape lying in the foyer. She runs to it and cradles the woman in her arms, smearing her cheek and the left side of her dress with blood. The pulse at the neck is there but not strong; the breathing is shallow. Consolata rubs the fuzz on the woman's head and begins to step in, deep, deeper to find the pinpoint of light. Shots ring from the next room.
Men are firing through the window at three women running through clover and Scotch broom. Consolata enters, bellowing, "No!" The men turn.
Consolata narrows her gaze against the sun, then lifts it as though distracted by something high above the heads of the men. "You're back," she says, and smiles.
Deacon Morgan needs the sunglasses, but they are nestled in his shirt pocket. He looks at Consolata and sees in her eyes what has been drained from them and from himself as well. There is blood near her lips. It takes his breath away. He lifts his hand to halt his brother's and discovers who, between them, is the stronger man. The bullet enters her forehead.
Dovey is screaming. Soane is staring.
"This dying may take a while." Lone is desperate for Doublemint as she stanches the white woman's wound. She and Ren have carried her to the sofa in the game room. Lone can't hear a heartbeat, and although the neck pulse seems still to be there, too much blood has left this woman with wrists small as a child's.
"Has anybody gone for Roger?" she shouts.
"Yes," somebody shouts back.
The noise outside the room is giving her a headache along with a fierce desire to chew. Lone leaves the woman to see what is being done to salvage a life or two from the mess.
Dovey is weeping on the stairs.
"Dovey, you have to shut up now. I need a thinking woman. Come in here and get some water; try to get that girl in there to drink it." She drags her toward the kitchen where Soane is.
Earlier, Deacon Morgan had carried Consolata into the kitchen, holding her in his arms for the time it took the women to clear the table. He laid her down carefully, as though any rough gesture might hurt her. It was after Consolata was comfortable-Soane's raincoat folded under her head-that his hands trembled. Then he left to help with the wounded men. Menus, unable to get the knife from his shoulder, was whinnying in pain. Harper's head was swelling, but it was Arnold Fleetwood who seemed to be suffering a concussion. And Jeff's broken jaw and cracked wrist needed attention. Other Ruby people, stirred by the first caravan, had arrived, increasing twofold the disorder and the din. Reverend Pulliam removed the knife from Menus' shoulder and had great difficulty trying to get both Jury men and the Fleetwoods to agree to go to the Demby hospital. A message came from Deed Sands' son that Roger's return from Middleton was expected this morning, and soon as he got back his daughter would send him along. Pulliam was finally persuasive and drove the hurt men away. Male voices continued to boom. Between loud accusations and sullen if quieter defense, under the onslaught of questions and prophecies of doom, it was a half hour or so before anyone thought to ask what had happened to the other women. When Pious did, Sargeant indicated "out there" with a head motion.
"Run off? To the sheriff?"
"Doubt that."
"What, man?"
"They went down. In the grass."
"You all massacred those women? For what?"
"Now we got white law on us as well as damnation!"
"We didn't come here to kill anybody. Look what they did to Menus and Fleet. It was self-defense!"
Aaron Poole looked at K. D. who had offered that explanation.
"You come in their house and don't expect them to fight you?" The contempt in his eyes was clear but not as chilling as Luther's. "Who had the guns?" asked Luther.
"We all did, but it was Uncle Steward who-"