Her once plush hope now consisted of a trifling essence, the miserable fractional extract that forms only at the bottom of a crucible of unyielding hardship, the tattered and unfairly punished substance of Last Hope. She managed this resource cautiously lately, held to it desperately, saving it for some great thing of consequence, entrusting its safekeeping only to her innermost child-soul, burying it deeply there, hiding it beneath the battered layers of her other souls, the weathered shells, the porous strata no longer capable of keeping in the thin and ethereal solvent of last hope.
She paused, inhaled deeply, and squinted her eyes. The sheriff was nowhere to be seen, a very good sign she thought, this surely reinforced hope. She let the inner child pitch it happily from hand to hand like summer sport. This she would afford. The inner child always believes hope is real. But she wanted the child to feel it, to heft it and apprehend its sway. She then took time to survey the entire scene in depth. Something seemed incorrect, an unexpected vacuum, a cold denial, she tried to shield the inner child’s eyes - too late. Adam was not there waiting for her. The naïve child, the endless-broken-promised child, utterly suddenly forlorn, clumsy, stumbled, spilling the treasure, its final pitiful traces instantly evaporating. Panic gamboled up to jolt every pore of her skin. She was startled by a sharp voice from behind:
“Move it squaw!”
She took the final step down from the doorway of the bus, her trembling feet coming to a precarious halt in a gravel lot, in a town of a thousand dead-ends, another last stop for the hopeless and the hurting, a crossroads in Kentucky called Baroquesville.
“Watch out. . . step away from the bus.”
The late-morning sun produced a neonesque luminescence in her peroxide-blonde tresses, hair she kept combed forward to cover the foremost elements of her physiognomy, the prominent cheek bones, the features that plainly announced the Cherokee blood coursing in her veins. She did this not from shame, but because she understood it was simply good business in this part of the world.
The trim of her waistline also provided information, although less subtle than that revealed in the nuances of her countenance. It announced her imminent motherhood. After leaving the bus she stood motionless for a moment. She cautiously lowered her suitcase to the ground. Then with much difficulty, she resumed her upright bearing. Each movement was now painful, every thought taxing. She swooned in the thick fumes gushing from the bus engine. Instinct told her the baby would come soon.
Looking across the highway, she noted how the Wagon Tongue Inn had not changed much in her absence. The twelve vehicles in the parking lot indicated that the regular Friday lunch crowd was present. She recalled how she had been a waitress there until her condition became conspicuous. That’s when they told her to take her disgrace elsewhere. For the last five months, she had enjoyed the mercy of anonymity at her older sister’s house in Knoxville. For the last five hours, the agony of her contractions had been almost unbearable. Now, as the bus drove away, she could do little more than stand paralyzed with pain.
Faces she recognized quickly came into view behind the greasy plate glass windows of the restaurant. She appeared to be the unexpected object of their mutual consideration. Some of them seemed to be gloating as they sipped from their coffee cups. She thought about the countless times she had refilled those same cups for those same faces. She knew very well the sorts of words that passed between those faces. She wondered about the hurtful things being said behind that glass now. People had been unkind to her so many times. Such acts ordinarily evoked her tears. But she was not crying now. The contractions were too painful for her to be concerned about words. There was new strength gained in her dry eyes. Yet this strength seemed built from that diminishing within her legs. Her knees were shaking. She grew dizzy.
Gradually she became aware that she was lying on her back beside her suitcase. Something sharp pushed against her temple. Her wrist ached. Her elbow was numb. The ground was surprisingly cold. She smelled dirt. The faces behind the glass continued to sip coffee and pontificate. A mourning dove cooed somewhere far away.
She heard a loud clang. It was a familiar sound. It was the sound made when the door of the Wagon Tongue Inn was opened too fast. From the direction of this sound she saw a luminous form swaying, bobbing, floating in slow motion like a cloud. She could not identify this cloud. The world was a blurry jumble of noise and misery. The cloud seemed to be getting nearer and brighter. Then another noise spilled out of the haze, a dreaded sound, a vicious and irritating sound, a sound that quickened her heart, that awakened abhorrence and loathing, the sound of implacable cruelty, the voice of her ex-employer, Mr. Downey:
“Hannah, I’m warning you!”
Hannah Angelo was her former co-worker at the restaurant. Crossing the highway, she quickly knelt beside Nina and gently lifted her into a semi-reclining position and then supported her head in her lap. She wiped the blood from the cuts on Nina’s forehead and arm.
“God bless you Hannah.” The contractions worsened. Hannah’s purse then landed with a thud, stirring the dust near them, its contents spilling and rattling across the ground.
“Consider yourself fired!”
Still no tears came, only more pain.
“I’m sorry Hannah, I’m so sorry. I don’t want you to lose your job...”
“…Hush darling. Don’t worry. I been aiming to quit for weeks. I can’t stand that sonofabitch anymore.”
Mr. Downey ran across the highway and stopped next to the women. He held a blackjack in his right hand.
“I heard that you ignorant sluts.”
Hannah looked up at him. His form was silhouetted against the sun.
“I’m glad you did, I meant it.”
With the sun in her eyes she did not see the blackjack coming. It struck her across the temple, knocking her unconscious. Her body fell over backwards. Nina cried out.
“Don’t hit her!”
“Shut up dog, you’re next.”
Mr. Downey kicked Nina in the stomach. Then while she writhed in agony he knelt beside her and whispered:
“We’ve got ways of dealing with girls like you. Sheriff Smith is gonna be here any minute and he’s gonna shoot your little cub in the head as soon as it’s born. That’s what we do with stray dogs in this town. You know that. Why did you come back? You were told to never come back.”
He wedged the club under her head and forced her to turn her face toward him. He looked her in the eyes.
“Sheriff Smith will let me shoot that baby if I ask him to.” (Holding his fingers to her stomach like a pistol and pulling the trigger.).
He poked her in the abdomen with the blackjack.
“Did you hear me spawn? (Feigning speech to the unborn child.) Well, what do you know, I think it’s trying to run away. This is gonna be fun.”
Nina closed her eyes tightly and covered her head and stomach with her arms.
Hannah began to regain consciousness. She quickly sat up and looked around. Blood streamed down her face.
“Get away from her.”
Mr. Downey stood up.
“You look like hell Hannah. You ought to get that cut tended to before infection sets in.”
“You shouldn’t of hit me Downey.”
“Oh yeah, why not, what are you gonna do about it?”
“I’m going to tell the police that’s what.”
“Ha! Go ahead, call Sheriff Smith and see what happens. Besides, it don’t matter, he’s already on his way.”
“Not that sadistic pig, I’m calling the State Police.”
“Is that so? I bet they won’t be able to understand what you’re saying with your teeth knocked out.”
“You are an evil man.”
“No, just better than you.”
Something distracted Mr. Downey. He quickly stepped back to the opposite side of the highway, carefully concealing the blackjack behind his apron. A white sedan stopped on the road beside Nina and Hannah, blocking the sun. The engine purred. Nina kept her eyes closed as she spoke:
“Is it the sheriff?”
“No Darling.”
After a pause Hannah continued:
“It’s Adam.”
It was now that the tears finally came.
Having gathered in the parking lot after Mr. Downey threw Hannah’s purse, many of the customers, still sipping from their coffee cups, suddenly found themselves enmeshed within the unfolding drama like an audience attending a Shakespearean tragedy. Their heads turned in unison as they watched the door of the sedan open. They gazed intently as a tall, well-dressed man got out of the car. And they recoiled en masse as he faced them and yelled:
“What’s wrong with you people, are you going to let a woman just die on the side road?”
Waving the blackjack and rushing to the side of Adam’s car, Mr. Downey screamed:
“She ain’t dying, she’s just squeezing out another bastard half-breed.”
Upon this cruel utterance, Mr. Downey gestured toward the crowd with the club raised in the air, twirling it around as if trying to stir up applause at a Secret Police pep rally. A weak chuckle from two or three malevolent souls was the only response.
“You are no gentleman sir.”
Then seeing the blood on the women, Adam looked at Mr. Downey.
“What’s been going on here?”
“None of your business pal.”
“I’m making it my business.”
“Go to hell McCasoway! And take your Indian slut with you – she’s upsetting my customers.”
Adam immediately took Nina in his arms and delicately placed her on the front seat of the car.
“Sorry I’m late Sweetheart. Hannah, why don't you get in too.”
“Gladly!”
“Hannah, you ungrateful tramp, get in the car with that pregnant whore and her worthless pimp and you’ll never work in this town again!”
“What, you think you own the whole damn town?”
“No, but I have a lot of pull with some very important and upstanding people.”
“Right, like this gang of no-tipping gossips?” (Pointing toward the crowd.)
“Watch your mouth woman, these people are my friends.”
“You’re dreaming Downey, they’re nothing but a bunch of snakes. If they knew what I know they’d slit your throat in a second and laugh about it.”
Some in the crowd shouted rudely and moved forward, surrounding Mr. Downey. Seeming to gain nerve from their protests, he replied:
“You unchaste, degenerate succubus, I ought to kill you.”
“You’re just mad because I would never sleep with you.”
“Liar! Shut up!”
“And tell your boy I know what he’s been doing in the back room. Hey all you important and upstanding people, I wouldn’t eat the slaw if I were you!”
Adam put the car in gear and drove forward a few feet, pausing the vehicle beside the crowd.
“I’m taking these women to the hospital now. I’ll see you sometime Downey.”
“You better hope not, because the next time you see me there will be a reckoning.”
“I’ll see you sometime.”
Daniel Webster McCasoway was born two hours later. He was Nina’s first child and the second son of Adam McCasoway. A century before, Nina’s great grandmother discovered comparable mercy upon her own Trail of Tears when a poor Irish immigrant became her husband. Their first son carried the name Daniel Webster like a flag, as would all first sons of their clan into perpetuity.