What will my hands still do, Arbuckle?

What they need to, my love.

20

When Lady Mae’s feet met level ground, it was still dark enough to conceal her shape behind the asters and switch grass that bent in the soft breeze. She squatted down upon the earth, which was dry and hard, slowing her breath until her ears cleared. Then she listened. There was nothing but the call of a hawk far off in the distance and her own boots in the dust. She could see through the dried stems and seedpods the back of her childhood shack. There it stood—still stood—and though she wanted to tear through the brush and run up the steps, she could not bring herself to move. Either Arbuckle was there or he was not there, and she wanted only to remember his boyish face, his soft beard, his gentle hands upon her shoulders. No, she would not go back even if it meant one last time, for it would swallow her up.

The bells rang. The clang of metal hung in the air. They were steady, one long ring after another. It was a call to assemble, an order for the residents to follow. She could see the crescent road through the asters and the narrow gangways between the shacks and watched as the residents came out of their shacks and stepped into view. There was Mr. and Mrs. Tarvis, Ruby, Edith’s poor parents. They walked slowly, carefully. It was as though each step itself was an atonement, the robbing of flesh as payment for sin. But they could not help but do it. Lady Mae wanted to call out to them, say I’m here. But when she opened her mouth, there was only the feel of air in her mouth and taste of sick in her throat. She watched the residents as they appeared and disappeared between the shacks, their small bodies powerless and resigned. Lady Mae crawled to her hands and knees, still hidden behind the asters. The residents walked in the direction of the square, and so Lady Mae, who was nearly dead herself, followed in the brush. She’d be able to stay hidden, take the long way around to the depot. If the residents were all in the square, no one would see her slip in through the back. There, she’d take her leg.

When she reached the curve in the road where the clearing was, she stopped. Beyond the clearing was the scaffold, and a crowd had gathered below it. It took only a moment—the high of day, the bells, the slow shuffle of the residents’ feet. It was Saturday, market day, and if she squinted and strained to see, she’d be able to make out a man or a woman or a child kneeling on the splintered wood, the chains of the Deputies shining in the sun. The wind picked up and carried with it the crying of an infant and the whip of a rope. The crying stopped, the bells rang still, and Lady Mae found herself walking slowly to the edge of the brush instead of toward the depot, dragging her injured foot behind her. Maybe she was delirious, the poison blanketing her brain. But it was as though Arbuckle’s hand nudged her, said you got to see and he’s right there and you ain’t dead yet.