Or was this rage she was seeing? Confined, bottled-up rage? As if even the smallest movement might stir a violence of rebellion that he dare not unleash? She stood looking, then ran across the big room, flinging herself at him. They held each other close, Morgan?s face against hers, then kissing her neck, her hair, coming alive again. It was all right now, they were together.
Morgan held her away, searching her face.?I was afraid you?d bring Sammie. Does she know you?re here??
?I didn?t tell her. She?s with Mama. I don?t think she?s ready to come but she would have insisted. She?s still so upset, I wanted to give her more time.?
Ever since Sammie had run from Falon into the bushes she had slept badly, had had nightmares that she wouldn?t talk about, and during most of the day was quiet and withdrawn. Only in the mornings did she seem easier. She would appear from the bedroom after Becky was up, relaxed and sunny and willing to smile. As if something about that last sleep strengthened her, as if her predawn dreams were happy ones. This morning Becky had heard her in her room talking to herself or maybe to her imaginary playmate. Whatever Sammie had found to comfort her was surely needed now.
Sitting on the couch, Morgan?s arm around Becky, comforted by their closeness, they didn?t talk for a long while. Becky wanted to know what it was like inside but she couldn?t ask. She prayed he wouldn?t ask how her work was going. She?d lost so many of her accounts that if she didn?t find a job in Atlanta she?dhave tosell the house to hire a new attorney and to rid herself of the mortgage payments. Even some of her oldest bookkeeping jobs had gone sour, so many people believing Morgan guilty had turned against them. She?d lost more than half her customers, though the folks at the hardware had remainedloyal. And business at the automotive shop was no better.
She told Morgan that her work and work at the shop were just fine. She hated lying to him. As natural and upbeat as she tried to be, no color returned to his face, no laughter to his eyes. He didn?t brighten when she told him about the four Atlanta lawyers, though he listened carefully, trying to assess each. She had so wanted to find a man she could have confidence in, someone sympathetic but capable and strong, who would give them hope.
?I think,? she said, ?Quaker Lowe might be the man. He didn?t sit tapping his fingers on the desk or making lengthy notes on a legal pad as the others did. He focused on me, he really listened to me.?
Lowe was a florid, square-faced man, big and rangy. Wide hands, like a farmer, his suit and white shirt limp from the heat, an active-looking man who seemed out of place in his cramped office. But his blue eyes showed a keen intelligence and, deep down, an easy wit. From the moment she sat down facing him across his desk she had liked him.?He took in what I had to say, all the details of Falon?s setup. I told him about the witnesses, recalled as much of the testimony as I could.
?He said he was booked solid with court cases but he?d do his best to rearrange his schedule, said his assistant would handle some of the court work. He seemed .†.†. as if hewanted to help. I didn?t get that from the other three.
?He said that if he could take the case he?d come up to Rome within the week and go through the court records.? She laid her hand over Morgan?s. ?He really listened, Morgan. He .†.†. I think he might really care about how you?ve been treated.?
She knew there was only a slim chance that Lowe would have time for them, but it was all they had. She prayed with every breath that he would make the time; she didn?t let herself think that Quaker Lowe would let them down.
Snuggling close to Morgan she knew that the longer they were apart the more difficult it would be to talk, the more different their lives would become, the less they would have to share. Morgan absorbed into the regimen of prison life, she struggling to keep them financially afloat, trying to keep Sammie safe, trying to appease an aunt who didn?t want them in her house. The one thing they had to share, besides Sammie herself,was the appeal.
When she told Morgan they?d be moving to Atlanta, that Aunt Anne had invited them, he knew she was leaving out half the story but he didn?t push her. He said he was glad she?d be near and wouldn?t have to make the long drive, and he left it at that. This wasn?t pleasant for either of them, this tiptoeing around asubject; it made her feel as stiff as a stranger. Nor did she mention Sammie?s continuing dreams of the cowboy?those parts of the dreams Sammie was willing to share with her.
She longed to tell him the dream from the previous night, which Sammie had shared; she wanted Morgan?s response. But somehow, she was wary of that response. It was two in the morning when Sammie sat straight up in bed, wide awake, not screaming with fear but instead solemn and demanding. ?Mama! Mama!?
Becky had turned on a light and drawn Sammie close. The child wasn?t afraid, she was quiet and composed, her dark eyes serious. ?He?s here, Mama. The cowboy is here. He?s in the prison, he?s behind the wall with Daddy.?
Becky had visualized the thin, leathery old man Sammie had once described. She hadn?t known what to make of the dream, this one couldn?t be real. Yet she never took Sammie?s dreams lightly; they were not to be brushed aside.
?He came to help Daddy, help him get out of that place, help him come home again.? Becky told herself thiswas a fantasy, how could it be anything else? It was nothing like Sammie?s dreams of the believable though painful events one might expect from life, the death of Sammie?s puppy, the courthouse fire.
But what about that last terrible nightmare where Morgan was locked in the Rome jail? They had known that was a fantasy, dark and impossible. And that nightmare had come true in all its terror and ugliness. Now, sitting close to Morgan, she knew she had to tell him, to share one more disturbing vision.
She described Sammie?s waking, so different from other nightmares. ?She woke so alert, more certain than with anything she?s ever experienced. She kept repeating, ?He?s here. He?s here to help Daddy. The cowboy?s here to help Daddy get away, help Daddy prove who robbed that bank and then Daddy will go free.??
Morgan said nothing, he sat looking at Becky trying to take a matter-of-fact approach. Over the years Sammie?s predictions had made a believer of him, but how could this dream ever be based in fact? This fanciful idea was impossible. He said, ?I haven?t noticed anyone like Sammie described. No thin wrinkled old con who walks bowlegged. Maybe this time, maybe itis just a dream.? But somewhere in Morgan?s heart a web of hope had begun to gather, a shadow of promise to weave itself into his thoughts, ready to spring to life.
10
MORGAN WENT ABOUT his prison routine in the days that followed, putting aside the small hope he?d found in Sammie?s dream. This time there was no substance, her idea of escape was wishful thinking. He settled into life behind bars as best he could except for the group counseling session. He didn?t need counseling, he needed justice.
The courts had locked him up for the rest of his life, but why force him to listen to a bunch of bickering inmates air their petty complaints? Or to the sanctimonious platitudes of the fresh-faced counselor who led the others in their pointless rankling? He didn?t want to share his pain.
The problem was, the day the counselor started working on him he ended up bellyaching just like the rest of the group. Afterward he felt cheap and ashamed. He?d let it all out, the unfairness of the jury, the uncaring judge and U.S. attorney, the incompetence of his own lawyer. He?d gone on about being used, manipulated like a rat in a lab experiment. The counseling he got, in front of the whole group, only made it worse. At least the counselor had gotten him a job in the automotive shop, but only because they needed skilled men. Now, thankful for that good luck, he crossed the prison yard on his way to another ?shrink? session, for another hour of misery.
IT WAS JUST one o?clock when Lee found the group counseling room and stepped inside. A gray metal desk stood across the room, arranged so the group leader sat with his back to the wall facing three rows of folding chairs, all empty. The young counselor looked up from his paperwork, then glanced at a list. ?Lee Fontana??