Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund Page B

speaking, Darl slowly reached in his trousers and then held out a coin at arm’s length. He made no comment.
    Better not to comment, Stella thought.
    Then Darl took a pack of Camels from his pocket. Slowly he withdrew a cigarette for himself. “Got a light?” he asked evenly, his eyes fixed on the man who took the coin.
    One of them, not that one, tossed him a lighter, which Darl snapped from the air with a quick downward pounce. He thumbed the wheel, looked down, and slowly leaned into the light. The little flame showed his brow pulled together, concentrating, dragging on the cigarette.
    â€œMind we have a smoke?” one asked.
    He held out the lighter and his pack to them.
    When they were all smoking, all but Stella, one of them asked, “Y’all see anybody come through here?”
    Stella could still see the lone man crouching within the darkness of the tree.
    â€œNo,” Darl answered.
    â€œYou ain’t seen nobody run by?”
    Darl just shook his head. He was handling everything just right. Calm, dignified. No bluster.
    â€œWe looking for somebody. Somebody who don’t know how to share.”
    Darl said nothing for a moment. He drew on the cigarette again, kept it in his lips. Then he said, “I think we’ll go on now,” the cigarette tip wagging while he spoke. He reached down to pick up the towel. As he bent, his eyes no longer held theirs.
    He was saving them. He was managing it. For the rest of her life, Stella knew she would be grateful to him. Would remember and respect his savvy, his courage.
    â€œShe your fiancée?”
    Stella was surprised to hear the black man use the French word so effortlessly.
    â€œYes,” Darl said. Now his gaze into the other man’s eyes was unflinching.
    Stella knew he meant “I’ll fight.”
    Darl reached out his hand for her, touched her bare arm. “Let’s go on,” he said quietly and initiated their steps away from the group.
    It was hard for Stella to make her foot reach out the first time. She had tried to become a tree. It was as though she were stuck in the moment, and it was hard to step out of the definition of danger.
    Her foot and leg must step forward, this second.
    That was her part.
    She had to move.
    And the second step was easier. Then another, and she’d learned to walk again.
    Darl steered them down the hill, toward the perimeter. He didn’t look back, but they walked quickly.
    After a distance, Stella’s throat opened and she said, “I did see a man go up under the tree.”
    â€œThat’s who they wanted,” he said. “Some sort of vendetta.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you tell?”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be lucky,” he said. “You don’t betray somebody else in trouble to try to save yourself.”
    Now she knew she did love him. Admiration and gratitude collided in her heart and scattered throughout her body. From the soles of her feet to the crown of her hair, her nerves tingled with the fallout. But what was luck ? And how had it played in her life? She’d never believed in luck of any sort.
    They moved through the cemetery, past the plentitude of oaks—the cedars, the holly trees—every tree and monument seemed outlined with a special vividness. Stella’s heartbeat echoed through the canals of her ears; all other sounds were faint and distant. “Everything looks so distinct,” she said, but she couldn’t hear herself well.
    Her heart beat hard against all the edges she was seeing and made them pulse.
    Darl said nothing, or was his voice muted by her heartbeats? Time between utterances was stretching. Finally she heard him say, as though his voice came through space from a great distance, “There’s the wall up ahead. Then we’ll be safe, when we reach the wall.”
    Then it was, Stella knew their lives could have ended. Yet the gang—they weren’t fully men—hadn’t been