Free A Dark and Lonely Place by Edna Buchanan Page B

whiskey. He woke Leugenia and their nine children, told them to quickly pack up whatever they wanted to keep because they were leaving now and wouldn’t be back.
    “Was there gunplay?” his wife asked, her eyes fearful in the lamplight, a tremor in her voice. “Is anybody dead?”
    “No, but a man was shot. He’ll live, but he has a big family. We best leave now, or somebody will die.”
    She began to pack her best linens in a wooden chest.
    The children, still sleepy and in their nightclothes, dutifully gathered their belongings, except for John.
    “Where are we going?” he persistently asked his father. “When will we be back?”
    “No time to talk, son. We got to go! Get your things together, now.”
    John dressed quickly, carried his banjo and guitar out onto the front porch, left them on the steps, then broke into a dead run down the dusty road. The dust, white in the moonlight, looked like silk.
    His father stepped out and glared after him.
    “It’s that girl,” he said bitterly, and moved to go after the boy.
    His wife placed her small, worn hand on his forearm and raised her eyes to his. “He just wants to say goodbye, Joe,” she said softly. “You remember how it was.”
    He nodded gruffly and caught her in his long arms.
    “I got to get busy,” she said after a moment, touched his stubbly cheek, and gently extricated herself.
    “You can’t bring that sideboard,” he said hoarsely, as she turned away. “It’s too big. We don’t have room for it.”
    It had belonged to her grandmother.
    “We can fit it in the wagon, Joe. Bobby and two of the girls can ride up front with us.”
    He nodded and went to harness up the team.
    The Upthegrove house was a mile and a half away. John arrived breathless, lungs bursting. The place was dark. He stood beneath Laura’s window and whistled like a mourning dove, a signal they used. No response. Again. Nothing. He carried a feed bucket to her window, stood on it, and scratched the screen.
    He heard her whisper in the dark. “John?”
    “It’s me, Laura . . .”
    She was suddenly there, a swift shadow in the dark. Eyes straining, he couldn’t see her face or what she wore but recognized her sweet scent, orange blossoms and roses. At that moment a mockingbird burst into a soaring, full-throated, heartbreaking song in the night. John would never forget the sound or that moment. They would remain with him, in his memory, forever.
    “John, what are you—”
    The front door burst open with a crash as though kicked by a mule. Laura’s stepfather loped barefoot across the creaky porch in his long johns, brandishing his breech-loading, double-barreled, .44 caliber shotgun.
    “I got you now, boy!” he shouted. “Freeze right there! Caught you dead to rights climbing into my little girl’s bedroom!”
    John stood his ground, heart pounding. To his surprise, he felt no fear. In fact, he thought, he could die now, without regret, outside her window.
    “No, sir,” he answered boldly. “I was not climbing into your daughter’s room. I wouldn’t do that. I just wanted to tell her something important.”
    Laura’s mother, in nightclothes and a hairnet, materialized like an apparition on the porch. Laura’s brother, Dewitt, trailed after her. “Mama, what’s happening?”
    “Hush, boy!” she told him. “Git yourself back to bed, right now.”
    “What could you possibly have to tell our Laura that’s so important at this time of night?” her stepfather asked, as he racked one into the chamber.
    “Daddy,” Laura cried. “Stop! Don’t do anything! Please!”
    John turned to her. “Don’t worry, Laura,” he said softly. “We’re leaving tonight. My whole family. I came to say goodbye. You’re my girl, aren’t you?”
    “Goodbye? When are you coming back, John?”
    He shrugged. “Don’t know, Laura. But I will, I promise. Remember that. I’ll be back!” Out the corner of his eye he saw her stepfather advance.
    “Get down from there, you son