I was stunned.
“You built a cabin?”
“Yeah. You buy a book, you read it, it tells you what to do, you do it. First year, I was in a camper with a generator, cuttin’ down trees, movin’ dirt. Next year, foundation, framing. You get the picture.”
“You built a cabin.”
“Yeah.”
“By yourself.”
“The electricity and plumbing were tricky. There’s codes. But I wasn’t on the moon and I got money so hired a coupla guys. Other than that. Yeah.”
“You built a cabin.”
He stopped talking.
“Where?” I asked.
His mouth moved in a weird way.
Oh boy.
“Where, Preacher?” I pushed.
“About two hours from your house.”
I felt my eyes get big and my word was high-pitched. “What?”
“Dumb luck you moved to Phoenix a coupla years later,” he muttered. “Though I didn’t know that at the time.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Nope.”
It was then I stopped talking.
“Looked at maybe thirty patches of land in ten different states. My patch, there’s no view, ’cept trees. Nothin’ around, ’cept critters. Not close to anything, not far away either. Nothin’ in my world was close to perfect then. But I got out of my truck on that land, and for the first time since you walked away from me on that beach, I took a clear breath. Maybe it was because the forces of nature knew, soon, you’d be livin’ two hours away from that patch.”
That was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard.
“I look at it as a sign,” he muttered.
“Preacher—”
“It was physical,” he said fast. “Hard work. Got up early. Moved all day. Chopping shit. Hauling shit. Hammering shit. Ate when it occurred to me. Fell in bed at night after a shower and a sandwich and was so worn out, I’d be asleep almost before I pulled the sheets over me. Downtime, when it was rainin’, or it was snowin’, I wrote songs. I read books. I did nothin’ but stare into space. On occasion, I took time. I climbed to the tops of mountains and screamed at God. I went to a lake and fished and wept that Baptiste barely got old enough to get good at tying his shoes, much less a fishin’ line. I got to a point where I was so deep in the anger, I didn’t think I’d ever go down that mountain except to buy food. Then I thought maybe I wouldn’t even bother doin’ that. I’d plant a garden, hunt and fish and my clothes could rot on me. I wouldn’t see you again. We wouldn’t make babies. I wouldn’t see the band again. We wouldn’t make music.”
I said nothing.
Just held his neck.
But maybe now I was doing it too tightly.
I just couldn’t stop.
“And then one day, I’m walkin’ to the woodshed to get wood, and there’s this fawn standing there, staring at me.”
I pressed closer automatically.
“Little body. Big ears. All legs. Legs that are spindly. Black eyes. Curious. Lookin’ right at me. Not scared at all. Babies, they’re not scared. They aren’t until you teach them how to be.”
I didn’t like where this was going, although fascinated by it, but I knew whatever was coming, I had to take it so he could give it, and then hopefully…
Be free of it.
Thus, I remained silent and started rubbing my thumbs through his beard at his jaw.
“Don’t know where her momma was. I’d stopped walkin’. And it was just her and me and the trees and the woodshed. She was so dainty, I got hold of her, I could break her neck. Tear off her legs. But something that beautiful, that precious, that thought wouldn’t even enter my head. And in that moment, lookin’ at that creature, I’d put myself in the path of a bullet to spare that fawn. If she was in danger, I’d go to the mat fightin’ if it meant she got away and was safe.”
Oh God.
My man.
My beautiful man.
“Then,” he went on, “all of a sudden, she starts and her momma’s barrelin’ over the rocks and scrub, eyein’ me. And momma gets cautious as she gets close, rounds up her baby, and when they clear the rock, they race off. And I stood there a long time when they were gone. It was cold as fuck, stays cold up on that mountain clean into July, which was why I was goin’ to get wood. But I didn’t move. Because all I could think was, I wished Baptiste had that. A momma barrelin’ over rock and scrub to get him out of harm’s way.”
He drew in a shaky breath.
I held mine.
“And I wish I had it.”
I shoved my face in his throat.
“But we didn’t,” he said. “And then I stood there thinking, ‘So what now?’”
I slid my arms around him.
“They took my childhood and they took Baptiste’s life. I get big, get strong, I’m not someone my mother can slap around, kick and pinch and take a hunk of my flesh between her fingers and twist until I taste blood, I’m bitin’ my tongue so hard not to cry out. Someone my father can beat down. They start fuckin’ with the Williamses because I’m there more than home and they can’t make me come home anymore. I’m not scared of them anymore. And with me not bein’ scared anymore, what’s that gonna mean to them? I heard it. They knew I did. I told that cop. They knew I loved my brother. They knew.”
He stopped talking and I didn’t start.
So, he continued.
“They start dickin’ with me, both of ’em, and I know they’re workin’ themselves up. They’re gettin’ tweaked. Then one night, Mister Oscar comes in while me and Shawn are hangin’ about, watchin’ the TV, and he takes me outside and he gives me two thousand dollars in cash and the keys to a piece-of-shit car, and he says, ‘Go, boy. Get out of Louisiana. Now. Drive.’ I looked at his face and I didn’t think. I took the money and the keys, and I got in that car and I got the fuck out of there.” He blew out a breath and finished, “I wasn’t seventeen.”
“You didn’t tell me that part,” I said softly.
“In the end, that’s Shawn’s story to tell.”
I shut my eyes tight, as with them, his folks, it always just got worse and worse.
“Lyla, baby, look at me.”
I took my face out of his throat and looked up at him.
“The thing about that was, Oscar gave me my freedom. I was free. I missed it. From that minute, I was free. And I made music. I made friends. I made a pretty girl love me. I went all the way around the world. I got my brother in a proper casket in a proper grave with a proper marker. I built my own fuckin’ house. And except for that last, they knew I did all that. And there I am, standin’ alone in some trees.”
“I’m understanding your epiphany and how important it was, but I would have liked to have been there. Been there, in that place, and been there for you.”
“You don’t get it, baby. That I had to do that. I had to carve my place in my mountain and I also had to do it by myself.”
“You’re right, I don’t get that because I can haul wood and hammer nails.”
“I was not a man you’d wanna be around.”
“I think I should have been the judge of that.”