Lily's Story by Don Gutteridge

the rear of the cabin.
    “ You sure?”
snapped his partner, tightening his grip.
    “ Goddam right.
The door’s busted half off. They had him holed up like a polecat
back there, but he’s done beat it to the bush!”
    “ You let him
out, gal?”
    “ Fuck no, I
tell ya, Sherm, the door’s lyin’ in pieces. That big buck just blew
outta there!”
    “ Cut the
cursin’,” Sherm said, more calmly. He loosened his hold on Lil’s
arm. “No call for that. Either your Daddy’s cooked up this little
treachery or that nigger’s lit out on his own. Either way, we’re
gonna get him.” He pulled the purse from their mutual grip. “You
won’t have need of this no more.”
    “ We goin’ into
the bush after the nigger?”
    “ Yes, we are.
Tell that pedlar to vamoose. We don’t need him no more.” He turned
to Lil. She saw in the growing light that he had the kindly face of
a father but one that could change, with little warning, to that
fierce, inexplicable parental anger she had suffered in her own
childhood. “You tell your Daddy to stay out of our way. Nobody’s
out for revenge so long’s we get our hands on the nigger. Good
mornin’ to you.”
    They mounted and cantered as
far as their enswaddled accomplice. Sherm spoke sharply to him, and
Bobby wheeled and loped southward, towards Chatham. They watched
him for fully ten minutes, then circled and headed north in the
direction they assumed Solomon had fled after brushing aside the
hingeless door.
     
     
     
    I t must have been
mid-morning when Papa came home. Lil had returned to her vigil at
the table, the gun an inch away but untouched. She was no longer
scared. Her ankle no longer hurt. The dread which had so possessed
her had finally divulged it names, and her soul longed for some
relief beyond dreaming.
    Lil didn’t know how long Papa
had been standing in the doorway when at last she looked up and saw
him there. He turned his face away wearily and slumped on the stool
before the spent fire. His flesh appeared to be too heavy for his
bones.
    “ He got away,”
Lil said.
    “ They hurt you
any?” he asked, rising and taking the hunting rifle from its place,
not looking at Lil.
    “ None.”
    “ An’ that
pedlar?” His sudden stare burned through her.
    “ Solomon, he
run him off. Then he went, too.”
    Bullets clicked coldly in
Papa’s pouch.
    “ I turned my
ankle just a bit.”
    “ Keep an eye
out,” Papa said. “I’ll be back.”
    After him, in
a voice that made her skull-bones hum, Lil shouted Why? Why? Why? Papa of course did not hear. He had turned south.
Towards Chatham.
     
     
     
    I t was dusk when he
came home once again. Lil had dreamed of something farther than
death. She opened her eyes to catch Papa’s face bending towards
hers. It was sad; she saw her Mama in it.
    “ I’m sorry,
princess. We’re gonna have to leave this place.”

 
     
     
    5
     
     
    1
     
    S even days later they
were packed and ready to go. Papa of course had planned to get away
at dawn, but he hadn’t counted on the goodbyes that needed to be
said. Maman surprised everyone by not weeping openly. Instead she
braved a smile for Lil, hugging her fiercely as if she might
transfer to those sapling limbs some of the bruised strength from
her own decades of travail. She may have seen in the sad, trudging
reluctance of departure some sign of her own leave-taking, so close
at hand. The Frenchman and his boys touched their caps and
mumbled au voir with exaggerated politeness, except
for Luc whose heart was irreparably broken and shamed itself with
silent, unconcealed tears.
    Lil knew it was pointless to
ask Papa why they had to leave, but she was certain it was due to
more than their troubles with the Scotsmen and the pedlar. Papa
would not give up the homestead, would not abandon Mama’s grave to
the winds and seasons, would not tear his little girl away from the
only life, the only world, the only people she had ever known – not
for a mere Scotsman or a pedlar