The Forgiving Kind

by Donna Everhart

Genres: Small Town & Rural

Synopsis

For twelve-year-old Martha "Sonny" Creech, there is no place more beautiful than her family's cotton farm. She, her two brothers, and her parents work hard on their land — hoeing, planting, picking — but only Sonny loves the rich, dark earth the way her father does. When a tragic accident claims his life, her stricken family struggles to fend off ruin — until their rich, reclusive neighbor offers to help finance that year's cotton crop.

Sonny is dismayed when her mama accepts Frank Fowler's offer; even more so when Sonny's best friend, Daniel, points out that the man has ulterior motives. Sonny has a talent for divining water — an ability she shared with her father and earns her the hated nickname "water witch" in school. But uncanny as that skill may be, it won't be enough to offset Mr. Fowler's disturbing influence in her world. Even her bond with Daniel begins to collapse under the weight of Mr. Fowler's bigoted taunts.

Though she tries to bury her misgivings for the sake of her mama's happiness, Sonny doesn't need a willow branch to divine that a reckoning is coming, bringing with it heartache, violence — and perhaps, a fitting and surprising measure of justice.

Release date: January 29, 2019

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

1955

Daddy never wanted to do nothing much other than grow cotton, and the way he’d gone at it, we figured that would be the thing to kill him, but it wasn’t. We got three hundred acres in Jones County, North Carolina, first-rate land he calls it. For a girl like me, meaning a girl who’d rather spend time outside more than anywhere else, there was no better place on earth. Some might think we’re stuck out in the middle of nowhere, that what we have ain’t no different than any other farm along Highway 58. I see things different—I see what he does. The way freshly plowed soil looks like that rich chocolate powder Mama uses for baking. How the leaves on a cotton plant are heart shaped, and how on a sunny day, their vivid green color gets so intense, you have to squint your eyes. There’s these little buds on the cotton plants, called squares, and when they bloom, they turn pale yellow, like fresh cream. Within days they go to a light pink, and then darker pink, self-pollinating, Daddy says. When our fields turn those different colors, I can’t imagine how nobody wouldn’t think it wasn’t the prettiest sight they’d ever laid eyes on.

In the spring when trees have started to bud out, and flowers reach for the sun, their sweet odor only beginning to drift on the air, we know it won’t be long before cotton-growing season has come again. The Fort Hill creeping phlox, Virginia spiderwort, and jonquils dare to emerge, while Mama’s Ches-tine Gowdy peonies begin to peek from the ground. Soon, the yard plumb bursts with colors too, always changing, always pretty. I like the hottest months, that time when a shimmery haze appears at the edge of the fields looking like water. In the fall, tiny, fluffy white clouds of cotton come, and we’re in an entirely different world by then, with everything dying off and such. Even the coats of deer and squirrels change, turning mostly gray so they blend with the trees and bushes.

All of us, Daddy, Mama, Ross, Trent, and me, we’re required to work real hard, hitching burlap bags over our shoulders, picking the cotton from dawn to dusk, fast as we can. School allows a break so anyone growing, which is most everybody, can get their fields picked. Afterward, the stalks get plowed under, and the land that was already flat looks even flatter. For instance, I can see a crow land in a tree a mile from our front yard. I can see someone driving down Turtle Pond Road toward our house minutes before they get here. That’s why our little town’s name suits this place. Flatland is where we live.

Our farmhouse is painted snowy white, like the cotton we pick, with a dark green tin roof. It’s split right down the middle by what’s called a dogtrot. The kitchen and living room set off to one side, and the bedrooms and a bathroom are on the other. The two sugar maples at each corner in the front, and a big oak tree in the backyard offer shade from a sweltering summer sun. Our land stops where Turtle Pond Road dead-ends in a thick row of longleaf pines, lined up like a natural fence. Beyond them are woods so dense and thick, during the warm months you can’t see over to Frank Fowler’s place, the only neighbor for miles and miles around. The only other thing visible sets off to the east, the small, silvery shape of the water tower that catches sunlight just so at certain times of the year.

Daddy said I appreciate the land like him, and while Ross is most like Daddy, Trent has got a wild streak long as the entire county. He absolutely hates farming. Daddy said the land’s soaked into me the way blood soaks into wood, a permanent, everlasting mark. Three years ago, when I was nine, he placed an old willow branch in my hands, and showed me how to do what he’s been doing since I can remember, something he calls “divining water.” Turned out I could do this too. Since then, my attachment to the land beneath me has grown even more. I ain’t never forgot how it felt, or how he’d looked either, like a cotton boll ’bout to burst open, all filled up with pride.

It was an early spring morning and as we walked toward a field to start work, we took our time, moseying along the path made by the tractor tires, him with one arm slung round my shoulder, the weight of it natural as my own breath. He pointed at all that surrounded us.

“That’s a mighty fine view, ain’t it, Sonny?”

“Sure is, Daddy.”

The sun painted the edge of the sky like the inside of a peach, all orangey and red. We strolled along, taking in the morning before us. Ross was already at work, listing the dirt into neat, tidy rows. The hum of the tractor in the distance was as familiar and common as spring robins calling for a mate. At sixteen, he was allowed to drive pretty much anything he wanted. Not Trent. At fourteen, he’s old enough, but last week when he was supposed to take one of the tractors to the barn, he got out on the road, and gassed it like he was driving a race car. He ended up in the ditch somehow and after Daddy found out he wasn’t dead, he was ticked off but good. Trent was told he’d have to use money out of his allowance each week to pay off what it cost for repairs. Daddy said he could also forget climbing on anything with a motor until he straightened up and earned the right again. At twelve, I’m considered old enough to drive the tractors too, but I prefer the quiet of working with a hoe, which Trent said was dumb.

Daddy dropped his arm off my shoulder.

He looked to his left, toward Trent already at work without being told. “I see he’s still thinking he can persuade me to change my mind.”

He grinned down at me before he took off to check the fields we’d done the day before. I grabbed a hoe leaning against the fence, and went to work on the early nutsedge and morning glories. The work was something I could do while allowing my thoughts to drift as unpredictable as a dandelion pod caught by a breeze. I thought about Daniel Lassiter. Daniel has always been a head shorter than me until this past year when he’d abruptly shot up fast as a cornstalk. His family lives directly in Flatland, city folk we consider them, though our town’s not much of a city. He likes to come here ’cause we got us a stage of sorts set up in one of the old barns. Daniel fancies himself a director, says he’s going to make us movie stars one day. That, or he said he’d be a scientist.

Trent’s voice interrupted my daydreaming. “Sonny, geez, hurry it up!”

Gosh, he was almost at the end of his row whereas I was only halfway. I didn’t want to hear him gripe, so I chopped good and fast. From where we worked, I had a perfect view of Daddy, moving along parallel to us, his hair shining like pale gold. We had the same hair color, his eye color too, a clear green Mama said looked like new shoots of grass.

Whenever we were at Wells’ Grocery or Slater’s Supplies, someone would inevitably say, “Sakes alive, if you Creech kids ain’t the spitting image of Lloyd.”

My arms were burning by the time I caught up to Trent and I took a minute to stretch my back muscles. We’d plant soon as it was warm enough, and this was the last field to get ready.

I was already in the process of starting again when Trent, his voice cracking like it had been doing lately, said, “Sonny, get a move on, Ross is almost done!”

I didn’t even bother to look up. “I ain’t in no race with you.”

“Just hurry it up.”

I mimicked him under my breath, glancing toward Daddy. He was so far away, he looked like a tiny baby doll. He bent down, but it was what happened next that caught my attention. He stumbled backward, the way you would when you found a root, and pulled harder than necessary to get it loose. He lifted his arm over his head and brought it down quick, an odd movement, as if he’d tossed something away. I shaded my eyes. Daddy was looking right at me. I waited to see if he’d go back to work. Something about the way he stood so still wasn’t right. He never wasted time just standing around. He was always on the go, in constant motion, sunup to sundown.

I leaned the hoe handle against my shoulder, cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, “Daddy? Everything all right?”

The question in my voice got Trent’s attention. Daddy didn’t wave, or acknowledge me. He looked like a scarecrow standing there. I started across the field, still not sure there was anything wrong until he went down to his hands and knees, his overalls and T-shirt creating a blue and white lump in the middle of all that brown dirt. I kept thinking he’d stand up again ’cause he was strong, never sick a day in his life. I was confused, and when he didn’t rise, a shivering kind a chill shot down my back and I started running, the soft, freshly turned soil making it hard to gain speed. I tripped, stumbling over the rows in an awkward manner, as if my leg muscles weren’t getting the proper signals from my brain. I couldn’t breathe, and the air was suddenly thick with heavily scented, overturned soil.

I yelled as I ran. “Daddy?”

Seconds later Trent passed me, his overalls stained dark with sweat, face already tanned almost the same color as the straw hat clamped on his head. Behind us the tractor shut off.

Ross’s voice was faint as he yelled, “What’s wrong?”

My hat slid off, fell to the ground, and my braid slapped against my back as I ran. It felt like it took forever to get to him when it only took seconds. Daddy lay balled up on his side, face contorted, his breath whistling in and out like a tire with a hole in it. Trent and I dropped to our knees in the warm, loamy soil. Daddy’s hands clenched tight around the handle of his hoe, and he groaned. There was a trace of blood on his lip, like he’d bit it. One of his legs tremored, knocking against the ground, a spastic, foreign movement that was scary to see. Seconds later, Ross dropped down beside me and Trent.

I said, “Daddy? What is it?”

Ross swiped at Daddy’s face with the tail of his T-shirt to wipe the sweat away. Daddy held his arm up. We looked. We saw, and understood. I put my hand over my mouth, covering the O shape of shock. Daddy’s arm had two deep puncture wounds, and his forearm was already puffing up. Trent pointed at a long brown thing, not hardly fifteen feet away.

He said, “Rattler.”

The snake squirmed, its body twisting and coiling, then uncoiling before slithering along a trench made by the tractor.

Trent jumped up like he would go after the snake, and Ross said, “No! Leave it. We got to get Daddy to the house.”

The sun burned too hot right then, as if it would sear our backs as we stared down at the man we’d only ever seen upright unless he was sleeping in the bed or sitting at the kitchen table eating. Ross and Trent got on either side of him and helped him stand.

Daddy gasped, “Don’t know why I didn’t see him. Bent . . .” He stopped to pant through the pain, then continued, “Down . . . to pick . . . up rock. There he was.”

Ross turned to me. “Sonny, go tell Mama to call the doc. We’ll get him to the house quick as we can.”

Holding back tears, I took off for the house running hard as I could go, stumbling back the way I’d come, across the neatly laid rows, the tracks I left as erratic as the path of a small tornado. We’d left Mama tending to early English peas in the kitchen garden. She wore a pair of Daddy’s work pants, cinched with a belt at the waist, and cut off at the bottom so they wouldn’t be too long. Daddy had only joked this morning about how they looked like clown pants.

Within a minute I was bolting across our backyard screaming, “Mama! Mama!”

My eyes searched the garden, just past the clothesline where white T-shirts and underwear snapped in the wind, to where I’d last seen her picking peas. She wasn’t there. I ran up the back steps, onto the porch, the boards creaking beneath my boots. I flew down the dogtrot, around to the side of the house where the outdoor cast-iron sink sat into a weather-worn wood table. This was where we brought tomatoes, okra, beans, cucumbers, and squash, and pumped the handle of the well to rinse them off. Granddaddy Creech had built all this about sixty years ago, and nothing had changed. There was a picture of Grandma Creech on the wall in our kitchen, and she was standing at the very sink Mama was bent over now.

Mama was motionless, eyes wide as she looked at me, auburn hair spilling out from under the pink kerchief she’d tied around her head, hands amongst the little green peas she’d shelled. Her face, usually flushed and pink, was milky white, as if my screams had already delivered bad news.

I gasped, half-sobbed, “Daddy. Snakebite. Rattler.”

She jerked her hands from the water and rushed by me, and the uncomfortable squeezing sensation stuck in my middle grew as I hurried after her, my face crumpling while trying to keep myself from bawling out loud. We went through the kitchen where yellow curtains waved pleasantly in front of the open window over the sink. There was the smell of sausage still lingering from breakfast. I don’t know why I noticed these small things. It was as if my senses had gone to a heightened state of alarm and took in everything, whether important or not. She picked up the receiver on the black rotary phone sitting on a small wooden table near the doorway to the living room. Beside it was a pad and pencil attached with a string, and a list of cotton-planting items Daddy had written for Slater’s Feed and Supply, in his quick scrawl. The only sign of distress was her left hand, which she flapped up and down, an invisible signaling to someone on the other end to hurry.

She slammed the receiver down, then picked it up again, hitting the buttons in the cradle repeatedly. Having a phone was a new thing out here, and we shared a party line with four others in our small town. There were a couple of women who were always on the line gossiping.

Mama shouted into the mouthpiece, “Brenda Sue, clear the line, it’s an emergency! No!You and Dottie got to hang up now!”

She put a hand over it and said, “Go see if the boys have got him here.”

I turned to leave as the operator broke in on the call.

Mama said, “Eunice! Get me Doc Meade, quick!”

I ran back out into the yard. Ross and Trent were midway into the field closest to the house. Each had one of Daddy’s arms over their shoulders, his feet dragging, like his leg muscles had gone to rubber, although one foot caught the ground every now and then like he was trying to help himself along. His head hung down and I couldn’t see his face.

I cupped my hands around my mouth, and yelled, “Hurry!”

Mama had come out and ran toward Ross and Trent as they half-dragged Daddy into the yard. She’d brought a sheet and laid it on the grass, motioning for them to put him there. In the short time since he’d been bit, I was stunned by his appearance. His arm was already twice its size and turning a funny color. His breathing was raspy, like he was fighting even harder now to suck in air. Mama dropped by Daddy’s side and yanked the kerchief off her head, and her hair fell forward as she leaned over him, hiding her face from us. He gasped loudly and his eyes remained closed tight in a hard squint, his body twisted in pain. I wanted to do something for him and didn’t know what, so I simply knelt by him too, my eyes going from him to Mama.

She said, “Doc Meade’s in the middle of delivering a baby over to Chinquapin. The nurse said he’s got some antivenin with him. We got to get him there quick as we can!”

Daddy panted, struggling to speak.

Mama lay her hand alongside his face. “Lloyd. Oh dear God, Lloyd. What is it? What are you saying?”

Daddy gasped, “Water.”

Her voice shaky, fearful, she said, “Get him water, Sonny, and get some aspirin too.”

I jumped up, glad to do something, and ran back down the dogtrot and into the tiny bathroom where the scent of the gardenia bush right below the window drifted in. The medicine cabinet door creaked from rusted hinges caused by high humidity. I opened the bottle of aspirin, dropping the white tablets into my hand, but they were shaking so hard, a bunch of them fell out of the bottle. They hit the floor and the side of the sink, sounding like sleet on the windows in winter. I hurried back to the kitchen, yanking the freezer door open, and grabbed a metal ice tray. I yanked on the handle to loosen the cubes, accidentally dumping half on the floor while managing to get the other half into a mason jar. I threw the tray in the sink where it clattered like I’d dropped an entire drawer of utensils.

The water from the tap was like the slowest of trickles, and I mumbled, “Come on, come on!”

Finally, I ran back outside, and Mama took the jar and held it to his mouth so he could drink. He sputtered, and gagged, then gulped half of it down. She was trying not to cry, but the whites of her eyes were bloodshot, making the blue of her irises stand out even more. I wished I didn’t have to see how he heaved and wrenched his body as he lay on the ground. Daniel had shown me journals he kept, ones where he’d drawn plants in and had written descriptions. One page said white snakeroot was good for rattlesnake bites, only we’d rid our land of it long ago when we’d had cows who might eat it and get milk sickness. What I wouldn’t have given to know if we still had any. Even one tiny plant might be somewhere on all this land, but there was no time for that.

Daddy’s feet thumped against the ground, jerking without control. Mama let him sip more ice water and said, “Here, Lloyd, take these.”

Like a baby bird, he opened his mouth, and she dropped two aspirin in. She helped him drink only he was having trouble swallowing, water spurting from his mouth as he gagged and choked the pills down. Mama was on the verge of panicking, and so was I. It was too scary to watch, and I turned my head away, my eyes hurting as I held back tears. Trent hadn’t said a word the entire time, his mouth downturned, trying not to cry too as he knelt by Daddy’s head.

Mama said, “Get the station wagon. Hurry, Ross.”

The wind picked up and Mama’s hair fluttered about, like a bird caught in a cage as she bent over and tended to Daddy. They’d grown up together in Jones County, and had gone to the same schools all their lives. After Daddy got back from North Carolina State College, they got married and had lived with Grandpa and Grandma Creech, until my grandparents were killed in a crash when a car ran a stop sign and T-boned them. My only knowledge of them came from a photo Daddy kept on his dresser.

Ross pulled the Chevy around, left the back door open, and hurried over to help. He and Trent got the top corners of the sheet, while Mama and I got the corners down by Daddy’s ankles. Though the spastic movement of his legs had slowed a bit, what was worse was he was no longer responding to us. We’d only known one other person who died from being snake bit. Mrs. Graham who went to our church had been down to her pond catching bream for her supper like she did a couple times a week. A cottonmouth was in the weeds and when it struck, its fangs sank deep in her calf. Everyone knew if the bite wasn’t deep, you stood a better chance. I didn’t want to think about how quick Daddy’s arm swelled, already looking like it might pop. I had the notion the bite was deep, so I prayed hard Doc Meade’s antivenin would work and tried not to think too far ahead.

I centered my thoughts on the fact nothing bad would happen. Nothing ever had. The worst thing to ever come visit us directly had been that wreck with my grandparents, but that was so long ago I had no memory of it. I guess you could say I considered myself pretty lucky, and this helped ease my mind as we rode to meet Doc Meade. I felt like that ’cause I have parents who loved one another, and hardly ever fought. They’ve always made even the simplest of things special, even grocery shopping together, ’cause Daddy would always buy us all ice cream sundaes when we were done. I loved how on Saturday nights, we sat together in the living room to watch a movie on TV, our hands dipping into big bowls of popcorn, while slurping on Pepsis, or hot chocolate, depending on the weather.

Shoot, I even got along with my brothers better than most siblings, least I thought so. We’d always done lots of things together, aside from work, and not ’cause we lived under one roof, and had to, but more to do with the fact we wanted to. In the humid summer months, Mama and Daddy didn’t mind if we went swimming in the pond, sometimes staying out there until midnight, floating on our backs, staring up at the stars and talking about how big the world was, and how tiny we were in it. And Ross would always offer to help if I got stuck on something with my homework when Mama or Daddy were too busy. Sure, Trent was impatient with me sometimes, but mostly we got along, particularly if I did something with him he liked to do. We’d spent lots of afternoons shooting cans off the fence, and once he brought me a small turtle as a pet ’cause he knew how much I liked animals.

Daddy groaned, then breathed in a way that sounded like he was being squeezed tight. I swallowed hard, and thought again, can’t nothing bad happen. How could it when everything had always been perfect.

1952

The willow branch was shaped like a Y. I held the two ends the way Daddy showed me, each between my thumb and forefinger, my elbows against my ribs, the straight end pointing in front of me. I started walking, my eyes staring ahead. I wasn’t looking at anything in particular, yet, I was keenly aware of everything. The way the sun’s rays came through the trees, streaks of light spearing the ground. The rough ends of the branch resting in my palms, still warm from his hands. The heavy, sweet scent of honeysuckle. It was late summer, our cotton well established, and needing only a little tending now and then. For long as I can recall Daddy would go to other farms in the area, usually when someone wanted a new well dug, or to set up a way to irrigate their crops and he’d take this same stick, walk the land, and find water.

I went slow, placing one foot ahead of the other. My bare feet created no sound except a soft whispering noise through the grass. I had an expectation of what should happen, only I didn’t know if it would. I was afraid, and excited. I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel, or how it would feel. My mouth went dry as my anticipation grew.

Daddy said, “Don’t think about anything, just keep going along toward the well. Relax.”

“Okay.”

I wanted for it to work, real bad, but I wasn’t sure why, except that Ross tried, Trent too, and nothing happened for neither of them. Daddy had been real disappointed. Even Mama tried one day, half fooling around, and when the stick didn’t cooperate, Daddy had chased her around the yard. He’d caught her, shrieking and laughing, and turned her over his knee, acting like he was going to spank her with it, only it turned into a kiss. I liked it when they got caught up with one another and forgot we were there. Even though Mama’s attempt ended on a high note, I think Daddy was worried he’d be the only one left who had the ability until he decided to let me try. If it worked for me, Daddy said I’d be the same age he’d been when he’d started. Nine years old.

I kept going, taking measured steps, the sun hot on my head, the honeysuckle smell stronger as I passed by the old fence post covered in it. I could see him keeping pace with me out of the corner of my eye. I wanted to look at him to see if I was still doing it right, but as I turned my head, a weird sensation started in my feet, crept up my legs, a sensation like something pulled at my skin. I sucked in my breath and stopped.

Daddy said, “Sonny?”

I couldn’t speak as it traveled to my middle and then down my arms. For some reason, I wanted to cry. My lower lip trembled, and I couldn’t look at him again. It was as if I had to move forward, like I was walking down a steep hill.

Daddy said, “You’re okay. Keep going, slow now.”

He hadn’t told me what to expect, but I knew this was it, the same thing he must’ve felt. I was covered in an allover shiver and then it changed, what I could only describe as a thereness, like my body had somehow attached itself to the ground through my feet. Like I’d grown roots as I got closer to the well. And then, without warning, the stick moved. I hadn’t done nothing, but down went the long end of it, slapping against my pants leg. It startled me, scared me. I let out a little scream, and dropped it. I stared at it like it was something I’d never seen. Wonder stretched my face muscles so my mouth was wide open and so were my eyes.

My breathing grew fast, and a warm feeling swirled in my middle. I smiled and looked back at Daddy. He stood with his hands on his hips, grinning.

He said, “Girl, you’re the first Creech female ever with the gift. That’s what divining water is, what you did, right there. That’s it!”

He came over to me, and hugged my shoulders, squeezing tight. “How about that, huh? Did you like it?”

I nodded. I did like it, now that it had happened. What I liked even more was that he was proud. I bent down and picked up the willow branch, and stared at it, like it was this magical object, not purely part of a tree.

Daddy said, “I’ve had that a long time.”

“Is this your first one?”

“It is.”

“But, how does it work? How does it know?”

“It doesn’t. It’s you. It’s only a tool, a way for your body to interact with what’s underneath you. Water underground is like water above ground, flowing in rivers and streams. It’s in more places than we know, and you can find it if you’re sensitive to it.”

I didn’t understand the connection between me and this piece of wood, but I didn’t need to. I only knew I liked the way it became an extension of me, like if someone cut into it, it would bleed my own blood, dripping on the ground to soak into the water it found.

I looked at the Y-shaped end, at how it was darkened by his sweat, the wood worn and smooth, slick from years of handling. Without a word, I went back to where I’d started, situated the ends back into my palms, tucked my elbows tight once more, and I began walking again. I wanted to sense that tugging on my lower leg muscles again, that almost electric-like feeling as I got closer to the water source, in this case, our well. I did it over and over again, eventually in different places so I could learn how different spots felt. Daddy followed me, watching, wearing this little grin. I only stopped when it was too dark to see where I was going. I didn’t hardly sleep a wink that night, and the next morning when I woke up, and before I got on the bus to go to school, I was back outside, making sure I hadn’t dreamed it all.

Exactly like the night before, when I got close to our well, it came again, a stirring through my feet, tingling up past my hips and on down my arms. Ross and Trent watched, then Trent declared I was faking it.

He said, “You’re moving it on your own.”

“I ain’t.”

“You are too, I can see it.”

Ross only said, “Do it again,” like I was performing a magic trick.

I let go of one end, and the awareness I had with what was below my feet faded. I went back to the back porch steps, repositioned the stick, and began my approach to the well.About ten feet from it, the branch wobbled and then another pace and down it went, very hard, very fast.

Trent made a dismissive gesture and said. . .