This Bitter Earth Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Part One - Bigelow Winter 1955

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part Two - Once and Again... St. Louis-1965

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Part three - Coming Home to Roost

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  More Praise for This Bitter Earth ...

  “Resonates with the mythic patterns of an epic poem, complete with lyrical language and an omniscient narrator. The threads of the story dovetail into an engrossing finale. McFadden uses dialogue—and words left unspoken—to sharpen focus of every emotion and to paint her characters as distinctly as if on canvas.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “Fans of novelist Bernice L. McFadden will delight in her third novel.”—Essence magazine

  “Beautifully written ... McFadden has created an ambitious and dramatic story ... The author’s engaging, rich, and wickedly damaged characters breathe life into this complex tale.”

  —Black Issues Book Review

  “McFadden has a real talent for storytelling ... This Bitter Earth is a real page-turner and sure to earn scores of new fans.”

  —The Baltimore Times

  “McFadden isn’t afraid to use her writing to paint vivid but disturbing pictures and capture raw situations. This Bitter Earth is a masterfully written and unsettling song.” —The Dallas Morning News

  Bernice L. McFadden is the author of the national bestsellers Sugar and The Warmest December (both available from Plume). Her fourth novel, Loving Donovan, will be available from Dutton in February 2003. Bernice was recently awarded the Zora Neale Hurston Society Award. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she was born and raised.

  Visit www.bernicemcfadden.com

  The Warmest December...

  “Searing and expertly imagined.”—Toni Morrison

  “McFadden knows how to tell a story with insight and clarity ... I couldn’t put it down.”—Tamara Henry, USA Today

  “Riveting.”—Essence magazine

  “Written with such great eloquence, The Warmest December is clearly one of the best books I have ever read.”

  —Kimberla Lawson Roby, author of Casting the First Stone

  Sugar ...

  “One of the most compelling and thought-provoking novels I’ve read in years.”—Terry McMillan

  “Sugar sings with unforgettable images, unique characters, and a moving story line. A haunting story that keeps the pages turning until the end.”—Ebony

  “Strong and folksy storytelling ... Think Zora Neale Hurston ... Sugar speaks of what is real.”—The Dallas Morning News

  “Vivid.”—The New York Times

  “A stunning tale of love and loss ... Bernice L. McFadden erupts on the scene with a literary explosion [and] reveals amazing talent and promise.”—The Chicago Defender

  PLUME

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, LJ.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,

  Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,

  New Delhi 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0745, Auckland,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Previously published in a Dutton edition.

  First Plume Printing, January 2003

  Copyright © Bernice L. McFadden, 2002

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the Dutton edition as follows:

  McFadden, Bernice L.

  This bitter earth : a novel / Bernice L. McFadden.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15390-1

  PS3563.C3622 T48 2002

  813’.54—dc21

  2001051141

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN GROUP (USA) INC , 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For

  R‘yane Azsa Waterton

  Shania Simon

  Myles & Jaron McFadden

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I wish to thank my higher power, my guides and spirits, my parents, family, friends and readers.

  Much respect and appreciation to all of the wonderful authors who have acknowledged my work and supported my efforts.

  To my editor, Laurie Chittenden; my agent, James Vines; and my publicist, Kathleen Matthews-Schmidt, my sincere gratitude.

  To Gloria Hardy, who found the house that Sugar bought. Desmond Waterton, for his hard work and emotional support, and Crystal and Walston Bobb-Semple of Brownstone Books and The Parlor Floor in Brooklyn, whose words and brownstone wisdom helped me through the early stages of turning my house into a home.

  A special acknowledgment to childhood friends Annette Mckinnon-Barno and June Prince—here’s to thirty years of friendship!

  Blessings.

  “... for she does not know

  the path to life. She staggers

  down a crooked trail and doesn’t

  even realize where it leads.”

  Proverbs 5:3-14

  Prologue

&nbs
p; Bigelow, Arkansas

  June 1, 1965

  THERE was the sound of a shotgun being cocked and then the snapping of twigs echoed through the field and rose above the screaming whistle of the northbound #2276.

  The sun had dropped from the sky hours earlier, leaving the moon dressed in a red ring.

  There should have been dogs out that night. White people would have used dogs to trap something that offensive, no matter that the smell of blood was strong enough for any human—black or white—to follow.

  Even without the smell of blood, the tiny beads that sparkled like scarlet raindrops on the green leaves of the chrysanthemums that grew under the living room window of #9 Grove Street would have given it all away, that and the streaks of crimson on the corn husks that were a week from harvesting.

  The blood left a clear trail for any human to follow and so the dogs would not be needed, but the sight of the gun and the heavy black boots had agitated them, sending them in circles inside their pen, their noses close to the ground, snorting and sneezing and nipping at one another’s hind legs until they raised their heads and began trumpeting the moon.

  When the truck pulled out without them, the headlights catching the brown of their eyes for a moment before slicing through the darkness, the hounds howled their disappointment and began to take turns digging up the loose dirt where the chicken wire went four inches deep, instead of ten.

  He left the truck and set out on foot.

  He stroked the wooden butt of the gun, running the tip of his index finger over the sixteen nicks that he’d carved into the light pinewood over the years. Sixteen bullets, sixteen shots, sixteen kills, sixteen nicks.

  He studied the bloody post that marked the entrance to the Hale property while he decided whether a nick would be appropriate. His mind made up, he patted the left pocket of his pants to make sure his hunting knife was there.

  There were six others in the field that night, one barefoot, one on the edge of madness, another that walked bent over and bleeding, two burdened with memories and one clutching the small piece of paper that held the truth.

  He was number seven. Number seven, the luckiest of numbers; the thought made him smile.

  He held back, leaving half a mile between himself and the other six. They needn’t know he was there. Them knowing would only interfere with what he needed to do, what the blackbirds had proph esized twenty-five years earlier.

  He moved slowly, his ears keen to the sounds of the night, his eyes acute in the blue darkness. He stopped to examine the cornstalks. He knew by the way the plants leaned lopsided like a tired woman instead of bending over like a beaten man that the other had moved through the field slowly and cautiously.

  He lifted his gun and brought the long black metal to rest in the crook of his neck. He liked the way the iron felt against his skin; it was cooling and it calmed the clamorous rhythm of his heart.

  He was entitled to a little anxiety. He’d been patient for a long time, too long. And now the universe had fixed it so that he could put to rest this evil.

  God is good all of the time, he thought as he stepped from the moonlit field and into the heavy darkness of the woods.

  Part One

  Bigelow Winter 1955

  Chapter 1

  SUGAR made her way down the road. The wind pushed at her back, hurrying her along and away from Bigelow and the people that gathered at the door of the church to watch her departure.

  The women hugged themselves for warmth and smiled while nodding their heads and clucking their tongues in triumph while the men, including the Reverend Foster, lifted their collars against the gale as they watched Sugar’s long legs and hefty bottom fade away into the gloomy night. The men hung their heads; they would miss her and the pleasure she’d given them.

  Good pussy gone traveled through their minds as they patted their thighs in tribute.

  Sugar walked with her head up and shoulders back as she slowly made her way down the road that had brought her to Bigelow. She moved past Fayline’s House of Beauty, which was closed and empty, but the laughter that had been had there at Sugar’s expense still echoed in her mind, fusing with the wind, adding to Sugar’s sadness.

  Sugar rounded a tight bend and the darkness swallowed her. Bigelow’s residents cocked their heads and strained their eyes as they tried to penetrate the blackness, but she was gone. Not even the light tap-tap-tap of her heels could be heard.

  Satisfied, they returned to their pews and their Bibles as if she had never been there at all.

  Once out of their view, Sugar crumpled, her shoulders slumped and her head dipped. The secret she carried with her tore at her heart and filled her eyes with tears.

  The secret hollered inside of Sugar’s mouth, rattling her teeth, pushing her tongue to curl the words out. Sugar would not speak it, but she did write it.

  She’d scrawled it on the corners of napkins and at the bottom of the obit section of the county newspaper. She’d written it on a page in the Sears catalogue, the one displaying hunting knives.

  She wrote it in block letters, sometimes in pencil or black ink and once, just once, in red.

  She kept those tiny slips of truth, folded into neat squares or crumpled into tiny balls, hiding them away in her coat pocket, because she knew she would be leaving Bigelow and she had to take the secret with her.

  Lappy did it.

  When she got to the mouth of town and was sure that the eyes of the Bigelow men and women were far enough away, she reached into her pocket and pulled her secret from its depths. They were heavy, those three little words on those tiny bits of paper, heavier than the blows that Lappy Clayton had covered her body with, but not as heavy as the casket that held Jude’s body.

  Sugar released the papers to the wind and watched as they danced and skipped their way across the cold hard ground. She covered her ears as the words screamed out to her:

  Lappy did it. Lappy did it. Lappy did it.

  Sugar wouldn’t tell, but someone else one day would find one of those pieces of paper and they would.

  She moved on, hoping that she would never have to return to Bigelow but knowing that she would. Her life had been tailored that way.

  Her departure only guaranteed her return, and every step forward just put her two steps closer to where she had been.

  Short Junction

  Winter 1955

  Chapter 2

  IT was early morning and the sun was blue behind the heather-colored clouds. Fat snowflakes dropped weightless from the sky, blanketing the earth in white frost. Dead leaves and tree branches, guided by the wind, moved restless across the ground, startling the small brown birds that poked holes through the ice in search of food.

  Record-low cold held Arkansas in its frigid grip.

  The wind howled and bullied people up the road and past the Lacey property. They slowed up in front of the house, however, despite the wind, and their eyes went wide and mouths just as broad as they stared at the snow-covered figure that sat still and lifeless on the porch.

  Sugar’s body had stopped trembling hours ago. Her eyelids were heavy with frost, and the mucus that had run so freely from her nose when she first settled herself down to die was now a yellow track of ice.

  She’d fought the wind all the way to Short Junction, bat tling with it, meeting its deafening howl with her own.

  Ten miles she’d walked, all the while hoping that her heart would stop and she would fall down dead in the road.

  She’d arrived at the Laceys’ just as the snow started to fall and the cold became black and unbearable. Sugar had looked down at the worn leopard print suitcase she carried, dropped it at the post that marked the entrance to the Lacey property and walked to the house.

  Sugar climbed the stairs that led to an aged porch that sloped so badly the women of the house had abandoned it for the back door. Carefully Sugar eased herself down onto the warped wood, waiting for the winter night to wrap her in its frigid embrace. A slow chill enfolded her and quietl
y traveled through her body. And Sugar decided that dying wasn’t bad, not bad at all, and she closed her eyes against the snow-filled night.

  The light went out behind her eyes just as day broke and the dull rhythm of her heart went idle. Sugar’s soul echoed the absence of her heart’s music. And God watched sadly as Sugar’s spirit spun in wide helpless circles to the silence of the dead.

  “She ain’t never had much sense.”

  “She got plenty of sense.”

  “Humph!”

  “She ain’t even got the sense she was born with.”

  “Hush, Sara.”

  “You hush, I’m grown, lemme speak my mind.”

  “You talking foolish, so hush.”

  “Sister, you ain’t got no right—”

  “I said hush and I ain’t gonna say it again.”

  “She sho’ do look dead.”

  “She ain’t dead, Ruby. Near it, though.”

  “If she had sense she woulda slit her wrist, jumped off a bridge or just blown her head off.”

  “Sara, I ain’t gonna tell you again to keep your mouth shut. You are really testing me, hear?”

  “Well, it’s true, May. If’n someone wants to kill themselves, for real, they know how to do it.”

  “Seems you know, so why don’t you go ahead and get it over with?”

  “I don’t wanna die.”

  “Well, then I advise you once again to hush.”