A Shadow Life
By Leta McCurry
Genre: Thriller, Suspense
Run, Laney, run. That’s what Mama said she should do
if something really bad happened. What just happened is worse than Mama could
have imagined. Now Laney, terrified, covered in blood, and alone, is on the run
from the law.
Laney finds a way to hide in plain sight and builds a
safe and near-perfect new life. Safe and near- perfect, that is, until three
people from the past show up looking for revenge, redemption and love.
Laura Oakley
The
Lost Chapter from A Shadow Life
By
Leta McCurry
I’ll never forget the first time I saw Laura Oakley.
I was shot up and on fire with fever and pain, lying on a
narrow bed in the war casualties ward of the Minnie Tapp Memorial Hospital in
Dallas not long after the Armistice of 1918. The only thing I had on my mind
was how to get somebody to put me out of my misery for good when I felt a cool
hand slide under my head and raise me up. A cup of water touched my lips and a
voice said, “Welcome home, soldier.”
I looked into a pair of brown eyes the exact color of
Mama’s secret recipe chocolate cake. The kindness I saw there flooded my eyes
with tears that dribbled down into stubble on my cheeks. Now, you might think a
six-foot-four pig farmer from the Texas hill country would be too shamed to
cry, but you would be mistaken. I tell you, after wading through body parts of
men and mules in the Argonne Forest, with the blood of your dead friends thick
on your face and filling your eyes so you can’t tell a Kraut from a tree, well,
a few tears… they don’t amount to nothing.
When Laura leaned over me and brushed the hair back off
my forehead with her fine pale hand, all of a sudden it seemed like life might
be worth living after all.
“Where are you from?” Her voice flowed over me, warm and
sweet, like the honey that always covered my hands when I robbed the hive up in
the old cottonwood at the farm.
“Kendalia, down in the hill country.”
“I love it down there, especially when the bluebonnets
are in bloom.”
“Yes, ma’am.” It was all I could think of to say. Laura
smiled and moved on to the next soldier.
The man in the bed on my left didn’t know who he was or
where he was but the man on my right told me Laura was a volunteer who visited
the military ward every weekday. From then on, Laura was the reason I bothered
to open my eyes every morning.
She was tall, taller than a lot of men, but you could
tell she was strong even though her frame was slim. Her skin looked smooth and
soft, the ivory color reminding me of the bit of Irish lace Mama had brought
from Ireland and kept safe in her top dresser drawer.
All the men were in love with her, not because of how she
looked but because of who she was. She had a gentle way about her that made you
feel like you were special, and no matter how sick you were, you just knew you
were going to be okay because Laura said so.
Laura stopped by my bed and talked for a few minutes
every day, just like she did with the other men but I didn’t want to be lumped
in with the other men. I wanted to be extra-special but I could tell Laura was
a genteel, educated girl by how she talked and how she acted. She was so far
above me, it was like she was the sun and I was a little petunia in Mama’s
flower bed; I could feel the warmth of her shining but I’d never be able to
touch her.
So I just watched as she moved among the hospital beds in
the ward, stopping for a few words with everyone, squeezing the hand of a kid
too young to be coming back from a war, writing a letter for a man who lost his
arms, and always smiling. I held those few minutes she spent with me every day
close to my heart and I still think it was Laura that speeded my recovery. Even
though I understood all my yearning would come to naught, I lived in dread of
the day I would be discharged and never see Laura Oakley again.
Then one day a miracle happened, though it didn’t feel
like a miracle at first. Laura said “Hi” as she walked right past my bed without
stopping to talk like usual. I didn’t know what to make of that and fretted and
stewed all day. Then, a little before supper, she came back, pulled up a chair
and sat by my bed. “So, Mr. Pig Farmer Milo French, what do you do down there
in the hill country besides raise pigs? Do you have a wife and a passel of
youngsters to keep you busy?”
Well, I tell you, I was so billy-whacked by this turn of
events, it took me a few minutes to come to myself and say, “No, ma’am, just
pigs, ma’am.” I felt like I was chewing my words way too much before spitting
them out.
Laura laughed and took my hand between hers. “Call me
Laura, Milo. Ma’am makes me feel like an old lady.”
“Yes, ma’am…Laura.”
“So, it’s just you and the pigs down there all by your
lonesome?”
“No. Mama and Papa are still there. But Papa is getting
old. I’ll be taking over one day.” It made me proud, telling her that because
it was not a small thing. My family had been pig-farming that land as long as
anybody could remember and even longer.
“You’ll have to tell me all about it.” Laura stood so the
orderly could deliver my supper tray. “We’ll talk some more tomorrow.” She
waved and walked away.
I lay awake most of the night trying to figure out what
just happened. Maybe it was nothing. Just Laura being her usual kind self, but
I really didn’t want to believe that.
I held my breath all the next day, waiting to see if she
would single me out for special attention again. Sure enough, at the end of her
shift, she rolled a wheel chair up to my bed and said, “You’re so much better,
soldier, I have permission to take you down to the lounge. The orderly will
bring your tray down there so you can have supper by the fire. That suit you
okay?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“Yes, Laura.”
“Yes, Laura.”
My chest puffed way out when I saw the other men watching
Laura wheel me out. If my leg wasn’t still so gimpy, I would have gotten up and
danced. Laura wheeled me to a table in front of the fireplace in the lounge and
sat across from me.
“So, Milo, do you have brothers and sisters?”
“No. I had an older brother who died as an infant and a
younger sister who died of scarlet fever when she was nine.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“I never knew my brother and I have trouble remembering
my sister. I know I should but it gets harder all the time to even remember
what she looked like.”
“I never had brothers or sisters so I can’t imagine what
something like that would be like. It must be hard.” She waited for the orderly
to put my supper tray on the table then continued. “So you’ve lived all your
life in … where is it?”
“Kendalia.”
“You went to school there?”
“Yes. I went through the eighth grade at primary school
just down the road from the house, but I had to take a bus to high school.” I
laughed when I remembered what a dust-up me going to high school had been.
“What’s so funny about riding a bus to school?”
“Oh, it’s not that. It’s just that my Mama’s a sight to
behold when she gets her dander up.” I buttered a biscuit and took a bite. “You
see, boys in that part of the country don’t usually go to high school. Most
drop out even before eighth grade to help on the farms. Papa thought it was
stretching things for me to finish primary school, so when Mama decided I
should go through high school, Papa thought it was time to put his foot down.”
“What happened?”
“Papa didn’t count on Mama pitching a hissy fit that
could have set a pack of hound dogs to howling all the way over in Louisana.” I
couldn’t help it; I laughed until tears rolled down my face, telling how Mama
was so determined I finish high school. “So I ended up being just about the
only boy in that part of the country with a high school diploma. I can’t tell
that it makes any difference at all to the pigs but I’m glad to have it.”
Then I went quiet for a minute or two as I stirred the
green beans around on my plate and thought how silly this probably all sounded
to Laura. It was likely she had even gone to college. She seemed to know what I
was thinking because she put her hand on mine and said, “Milo, don’t confuse
intelligence with education. I can tell you have more natural intelligence than
some men I know who have four years of college.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Nobody had ever said
such a thing to me before. I just know that hearing her say it made me feel so
good, like sinking down into the warmth of a feather bed on a cold night.
It wasn’t but a few days before I was out of the wheel
chair and using crutches and we went down to the lounge every afternoon. Every
night she would sweet talk the cafeteria into a tray for both of us so we could
have supper together, then we’d sit by the fire having coffee and talking about
anything and everything.
I couldn’t get enough of her. This was a real genteel
girl, but she never made me feel she was better than me. Me, a pig farmer. We
took to holding hands while we talked and she started staying later and later.
Then she started coming in for a few hours on Saturdays just to see me. One
Saturday afternoon she asked me, right out of the blue, “Have you ever been in
love, Milo?’
“No,” I said. “Not yet.” I didn’t tell her how I made a
fool of myself over Prissy Calloway when I was thirteen and she was a grade
ahead of me in school. I was so mortified when she chose to share her lunch
bucket with Joe Bob Dorell instead of me, I figured that love business wasn’t
all it was cracked up to be. I expected I’d grow old by myself then drop dead
someday, probably in the pig pen. That had all seemed like a fine idea until I
met Laura so I had to ask, “Have you?”
‘Yes. Well, I think so. I was eighteen and he was twenty.
Ryman’s father was a school teacher and Ryman was working to put himself
through college. He was hired by our gardener and we got acquainted quite by
accident. Then we started finding ways to spend time together. My father
exploded when I told him I wanted to marry Ryman.” Laura stopped for a minute
and looked at her hands in her lap. “I explained that Ryman was poor but he was
working his way through college and wanted to be a lawyer. Father would have
none of it. He said Ryman was most likely studying to be a gigolo.
“We had a terrible row. I thought Mother would side with
me but she didn’t. It wasn’t but a few days before Father called me into his
study and showed me a cancelled bank draft for five thousand dollars with
Ryman’s signature on the back. I never saw Ryman again.” Laura looked up at me
and I could see tears shimmering in her eyes. She dashed them away with her
fingers.
“I have never forgiven Father or Mother for that matter.
But, I will say, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve thought a lot about it. I don’t
know if I loved Ryman or if it was the excitement of sneaking about and finding
ways to spend time with him. Or it might have been just the excitement of
defying Father. He has always ruled Mother and me with an iron fist. But,
whether I loved Ryman or not, he broke my heart when he didn’t stand up to
Father.”
I found myself quite pleased, not that she had her heart
broke, but that she hadn’t married Ryman.
One night, it must have been after eight o’clock, this
man in a funny uniform came into the lounge. It wasn’t a military uniform and
he was a pretty old man. He stood by the door and said, ‘Miss Laura, excuse me,
but we really should go.”
Laura sighed real big and said, “You’re right, Upton.
Thank you.” Then she leaned over, kissed me on the cheek, winked and was gone.
I lay awake just about all night puzzling about who that
man might be. I knew it wasn’t her daddy. And I was right. It wasn’t but a
couple of days before I got to meet that gentleman and I can say I could have
lived my whole life without the pleasure.
It was a Sunday. Laura generally didn’t come in to the
hospital on Sunday and I was surprised to see her. She came in the morning and
we walked down to the lounge. We got to spend the whole day together. After
dinner from the cafeteria as usual, we sat by the fire holding hands, laughing
and talking, and it got later and later. It must have been going on ten when
that same man in the uniform came rushing in real nervous like.
He said, “Miss Laura, your…”
Before he could finish this really big man in a fancy
suit with a fancy hat on his head pushed right in.
“Laura!” The man didn’t shout but his voice cracked just
like a rifle shot. It felt like the room shook and everybody in there looked
up.
Laura stood up real quick like and said, calm as you
please, “Father.”
He walked right up to us and said, “What do you think
you’re doing?”
He grabbed her arm and I could tell he hurt her but she
only said, “Why, I’m visiting with Mr. Milo French.”
Her father didn’t even look at me. He said, “I only
agreed you could volunteer in this hellhole to keep the peace and because you
said it would only be a few hours a couple of days a week. Now it seems you’re
down here every day and until all hours.”
“These men are coming back from war, Father, and my
conscience dictates that I give whatever comfort and aid I can.”
He came right back at her and said, “I knew it was a
mistake to let this get started. It ends tonight. It’s not proper that a girl
like you is here at all hours consorting with riffraff.”
I tell you, Laura drew herself up and lifted her chin
‘til I thought her head must be touching the ceiling and she said in a cold
voice, “I’ll have you know that Mr. French is not riffraff, Father. He happens
to be a very fine pig farmer from an old Texas family in Kendalia.”
In that instant, I fell so in love with Laura Oakley, I
didn’t know my name or where I was. I just knew I wanted to live out my life
with this beautiful woman. Her father swelled up like a toad ‘til his face
turned red and I thought he would have apoplexy right then and there.
He tightened his hold on Laura’s arm and said, ‘You will come with me this instant, Laura,
and you will not come to this place again.”
I stood up. “Now, wait a minute…”
Laura shook her head at me and jerked her arm out of his
grip. ‘I will come with you, Father, not because you order it, but to avoid a
petty scene. I remind you that I am twenty-one now and not a scared eighteen
year old. I shall return here if I wish.”
The old man snorted and mimicked her. “If you wish. Well, I’ve had about enough
of your shenanigans and sass. You straighten up and behave or we’ll see how you
fare if I cut you off without a dime. You understand me?”
“I understand you, Father.” She leaned down and kissed me
right on the lips.
“The old man really grabbed her then and drug her,
stumbling, toward the door, and her looking back over her shoulder at me. The
sight of her walking out of that room felt just like when that sharpshooter’s
bullet tore into me in France. My whole self just exploded into a million
pieces and I knew I could never be put back together whole again. I knew it beyond doubt because, in that
instant, I knew as sure as I knew my name that I could never have a life with
that girl. Not because I didn’t love her, but because I did.
I didn’t have to go look at where she lived to know what
it would be like. It would be a mansion. I had never seen her in anything but a
nurse’s uniform but I understood that one of her regular dresses would cost
more than I would earn as a pig farmer in a year. But it was a lot more than
Laura being used to fancy houses, fancy clothes and fancy cars. She was used to
going to fancy places with fancy people. The men she knew wore suits instead of
coming in the back door every night stomping pig shit off their boots.
Laura could say intelligence and education weren’t the
same as much as she wanted but she was used to talking with people who knew
things. Sooner or later she would miss talking with educated people and she
would start thinking I’m ignorant, which I am, of a lot of things.
So there was a lot of puzzlement going on in my head as
that girl walked out the door. First, I had to think that maybe I was
misreading her. Maybe she wasn’t having the same feelings as me. Maybe she was
just being kind. Everybody could see that was just the kind of person she was.
The second thing I had to think on was maybe she was
using me to get back at her father for running off the boy she wanted to marry
when she was eighteen. Maybe she had really loved him and wanted to pay her
father back by marrying somebody even worse than a school teacher’s son or she
might just play me along until her father was really good and mad. But somehow,
I just couldn’t swallow that pill, no matter how I tried to tell myself it could
be. It just didn’t fit the Laura I loved.
The third thing was really the worst of all. Maybe she
did love me enough to walk away from everything and marry a pig farmer. I know
I loved her enough to do anything to be with her but what could I do? I only knew
pig farming. It was who I was. Just like she was who she was, a smart, rich,
beautiful girl who could have anybody she wanted.
I knew if she got carried away with loving me enough to
marry me, the day would come when she would hate me. She would hate everything
she thought she loved. Hate herself for loving me and hate me for letting her
get herself into such a sorry life.
So, even if she did truly love me and was willing to
marry me, I had to be the sensible one. I had to love her enough to let her go so
that is what I did.
It had nothing to do with money, or her father cutting
her off. I didn’t even know she was rich when I first started to fall in love
with her. Besides that, I don’t want no man’s money but what I earn my own
self.
So I put on my regular clothes and just walked out of the
hospital late that night. I didn’t tell nobody I was leaving or where I was
going. But I couldn’t bear being so far away from her, not just yet, so I went
to one of my mama’s cousins just on the outskirts of Dallas. I stayed there a
week or so until I thought I was strong enough to really walk away from her.
When I got home, back to Kendalia, there were two letters
waiting from me. There was no return address on them but I knew they were from
Laura. I lifted the lid on the cook stove in Mama’s kitchen and dropped them
in. I knew I would be in more trouble than I could handle if I read them. But,
the one thing I didn’t reckon on was how fierce Laura Oakley really did love
me.
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Thursday,
the day after Christmas in 1918. Mama had rung the dinner bell and me and Papa
had come in from the barn for the noon meal. I was about to set down at the
table when we heard a motor then a car door slam out in the yard.
“Now, who in the world could that be?” Mama said.
“I’ll go see.” I opened the door and Laura was standing
there.
I thought I loved her and wanted her so much every minute
of every day that I had just conjured her up. But it was Laura all right. She
put her arms around my neck and kissed me. Mama and Papa walked up behind me to
see who it was and Laura said, “You all come with me.”
And we did. We rode in that fancy car driven by the man
in the funny uniform over to Boerne, the county seat. We were married by a
justice of the peace that afternoon.
If I had known what Laura’s love for me would cost
her, I would have made her go back to
Dallas that December day she showed up at my door.
That’s what I tell myself, but I don’t know if I could
have really turned away from her a second time, even now, knowing what killed
her. It wasn’t the snake coiled behind a
jar of peaches on a shelf in the cool, dark cellar that hot summer day that
killed her. It was her love for me, a love so strong it held her on that
god-forsaken pig farm. That is what haunts me.
Tale-spinner. Revealer of secrets. A dog’s best
friend. Cornbread and fried okra country girl.
Lives in Southern Oregon and enjoys writing, reading,
the open road on a Stallion motorcycle (trike–as a passenger), good food,
travel, genealogy, and a large, fun-loving family. Favorite destinations:
Ireland and Singapore. Author of “High Cotton Country” and “A Shadow Life” and
presently writing her third novel, “Dancing to the Silence.”
Leta says she loves the fascination of new characters
and the fun of getting acquainted with them and seeing what they will do as the
story develops.
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