Simple ...

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

 

  Lizzie lost the baby after all, and then whined on and on for weeks, saying it weren’t fair how some women have more than they can take care of.

  Simple didn’t like it when Lizzie cried; he would twist his ear so hard until it looked like a bright red tomato stuck on the side of his head.  I swear Lizzie cried all the louder, just to see him do it.

  ‘Lizzie s-sad,’ he’d say, and not much else until I got sick of hearing it.  I found myself wishing I was someone else, anyone but Leanne.  There were days when I would try getting Simple to call me by a different name, just to hear how it sounded, but he didn’t like doing it and after a while I couldn’t get him to do it no more.

  He said, ‘N-no. Leanne n-nice n-name. Simple give.’

  It took most of the day to get him to explain that when I was taken in by Gran, he named me.   At least I think that’s what he said.  Which meant I did have another name, a rightful name given to me by my Ma?  When I asked about her, he shook his head and I couldn’t get him to tell me if he knew her or had seen her.  I knew when Simple took to shaking his head there was no use talking to him.  I would have to wait and try again later.

  Gran had nothing to say about my Ma either, and I soon gave up asking, as her hand was heavy and hurt a lot.  There was no one else to ask that didn’t fear Gran.

 

  Simple didn’t take off very often, but it seemed different this time.  Gran was spitting fire with every word she spoke.  When Jack couldn’t find him anywhere, Gran snapped at Lizzie. ‘It’s your carrying on that’s set him off, it’s too soon. The darn fool’s gonna get us locked up.  Jack, go get Tommy and find Simple!’

  Jack snatched up his rifle and made to leave.  He turned at the door, remembering he had looked for hours already.  ‘It’s no use, I’ve looked everywhere.’

  Turning to him, her small green eyes blazing, she snarled, ‘Then look some more, and don’t come back empty handed!’

 

  Nearly a week later they came back without Simple, looking as if they had been chased through the woods by a bear.  Gran let them wash up and eat before she spoke.  When she did, my heart jumped.

  ‘Something must have happened to him, he’d never stay gone this long.’

  Ten days without Simple to talk to was bad enough.  The thought he might not came back at all was unbearable.  Gran had to be wrong, but I couldn’t be the one to tell her.  Everyone looked to be thinking the same thing, it was written all over their faces.

  Speaking softly, like she thought God himself might hear, she told Tommy to go ask his friends in town if they had heard anything.  Tommy nodded and left the cabin.

  ‘Jack, you go ask the Spiers, see if they’ve been hidin’ him.’

  Now I knew it was bad.  Gran hated the Spiers.  They had been part of the family once and now they lived up in the mountains.  The fighting had stopped long ago, but bad feeling kept them away.  I often wondered if they had something to do with grandpa and the trap he died in.

  There was no telling how long Jack and Tommy would be gone.  That left Uncle Jimmy, meaner than Gran even on a good day.  Jack wasn’t pleased about leaving Lizzie behind.  Sharing her with Tommy and letting Simple have that one go was his choice, but he didn’t want Uncle Jimmy to have any part of her.

  Jimmy did end up taking Lizzie off for a few days.  We couldn’t stop him and Gran never told Jimmy what to do, no one did.  Mean as he was, she had some kind of hold on him, but stepping in to save Jack’s feelings obviously wasn’t worth treading on Jimmy’s toes for.

  No one really knew what Jimmy got up to when he wasn’t with us.  He and Gran would fight once in a while and when that happened, we all stayed clear of the cabin.  Jack pulled me out from under the crawl space one day, where I had been hiding, trying to hear what they were saying.  That was the only time he laid a hand on me.

  ‘You keep clear of Jimmy, you hear? I aint gonna tell you twice.’  Then he slapped my arm real hard.  I remember Simple rocking me that day, holding me close. His big arms wrapped around me until I fell asleep.

  Now he was missing.  I felt alone and afraid. I couldn’t look for him, wouldn’t know where to start.

  Gran was going to wear a hole in the cabin floor if she didn’t stop pacing up and down.  She kept the place spotlessly clean.  Dirt belonged outside, that’s what she said, while her hand slapped the side of your face for forgetting to leave muddy boots on the porch.  Even Jimmy stood around in his socks, rifle in one hand, looking less tough without the boots he liked to kick with.

  Gran scrubbed the wooden floor every day.  No mud or dust was allowed to linger, and everything had its place.  She knew where everything was and if it had been moved or touched, there would be the devil to pay.

  Right now she seemed to be hell bent on turning her clean wooden floor into a cloud of sawdust that threatened to swallow her feet.  Every time Lizzie tried to speak, Gran shut her up with a look.  Lizzie was stubborn, kept trying to tell her it couldn’t be like before; he would have been back by now.

  Before what I wanted to know.  Tommy wouldn’t say what Lizzie meant. I tried asking Lizzie again, but it was no use.  Gran kept telling me to hush up as she was trying to think.

 

  I cried myself to sleep most of the nights Simple was gone.  I knew how much he hated being away from us.  He loved Lizzie and would do anything to see her smile and keep her happy.  They all knew how Simple felt about Lizzie and teased him, saying she tasted better than Gran’s blueberry pie.  He asked me once how Lizzie could taste like pie, but I couldn’t tell him what they meant.  Couldn’t tell him what I had seen by accident the day I found her leaning against the wood pile, her dress pulled up high around her waist.  Jack on his knees, his face buried deep between her legs.  The pair of them so lost in what they were doing, I could have shot a rifle across their heads and they wouldn’t have moved.  How could I tell Simple such things?

 

  I prayed Uncle Jimmy wouldn’t be the one to find Simple.  He wouldn’t kill him, but Simple would wish he had.

  One by one they returned without Simple.  I had no tears left for crying; only the kind that stung the back of your eyes and made the anger swell.  Thoughts smashed one against another, none making any sense, yet pushing me to do what I knew to be daft; take off and look for Simple myself.

  One evening, I watched Gran step outside and walk across the clearing.  She stood there, hands on hips, looking at the stars like she was hoping they would tell her where Simple had gone.  Tommy and Jack followed her outside, close enough for her to hear Tommy say Simple was daft enough to stay lost and he wasn’t wasting any more time looking for him.  Grabbing himself between the legs, he said he had better things to do.  Meaning he wanted to go to town and mess around with Ned Harrison’s wife again.

  I watched Gran bend down and pick up a rock by her feet, turn and throw it at Tommy.  Jack caught it in mid- air, laughed and threw it towards the woods.  The pair of them took off towards town.  Gran let them go without a word.  Was she giving up, letting Simple stay lost?

  That night I put what little food I could find into a sack and waited for Gran to turn in.  I thought she was going to stay outside all night, but she finally hauled herself out of the rocker and went to bed.  The quarter moon gave little light as I made it to the dark woods without being seen, my heart banging against my ribs, threatening to wake every creature for miles.  The sound would carry back to Gran. I had to slow down, be quiet. What if someone other than Simple was lurking around in the woods?

  What if the boys had been lying to Gran and got rid of him?  What if Jimmy had found him?   I couldn’t let the rest of that thought come into my head. Simple could be lying out here someplace with his head missing.  Again I wondered what made Jimmy so strange about heads.

  I remembered Jack saying once it wasn’t just animal heads.  ‘Folk push Jimmy the wrong way; they’re likely to lose theirs one night.’  He said it as if he knew for sure...