John Amos had picked himself off the floor, muttering to himself about Devil's issue that should have died when she was caged and helpless. "Damned hellcat should have been slaughtered before she could create more Devil's issue!"
I heard.
Maybe Momma didn't.
I moved out of the dumbwaiter unseen by my grandmother, who was crying as she sat on the floor in a broken heap.
Momma had on her boots now, her white coat, though she was shivering as she came to the door and looked in on the woman still on the floor. "What did you say, John Amos Jackson? Did I hear you call me a hellcat, Devil's issue? Say that again to my face! Go on, say it to me now! Now that I'm an adult and not a frightened child anymore. Now that my legs and arms are strong and yours are weak. Don't think you can do away with me so easily now--for I'm not old, and I'm not weak, and I'm not scared anymore."
He headed her way, holding in his hand a poker he must have taken from the fireplace. She laughed, seeming to think he was a fool and an easy enemy. Quickly she dodged, then shot out her good leg and kicked his bottom hard so he fell prone upon his face, screaming out his rage as he fell.
I was screaming too. This was wrong! This was not the way John Amos and I had planned for God to have his revenge. He wasn't supposed to hurt her.
Momma saw me then. Her blue eyes widened, her face paled and she seemed to crumple. "Bart."
I whispered, "John Amos told me all the things I had to do."
She whirled on my grandmother. "Look what you have done. You have turned my own son against me. And all the time you get by with everything, even murder. You poisoned Cory, poisoned Carrie's mind so she had to kill herself, killed Bart Winslow when you sent him back into the fire to save the life of a wretched old woman who didn't deserve to live--and now you poison the mind of my son against me. And you escaped justice by pleading insanity. You weren't insane when you set fire to Foxworth Hall. That was the first clever stunt you pulled in your life but this is my time for revenge." And with those words she raced to the fireplace, picked up the small shovel for ashes, pushed aside the firescreen, and began to pull red hot coals from the fire onto the Oriental rug.
As the rug began to smoke, she called to me, "Bart, put on your coat, we're going home, and we'll move so far away she'll never find us, never!"
I screamed. My grandmother screamed. But my mother was so busy buttoning up Cindy's coat she didn't see that John Amos had the poker in his hand again. As I froze, my lips parted to scream a warning again--the poker came down on her head. She slumped quietly to the floor like a rag doll.
"You fool!" cried my grandmother. "You may have killed her!"
Things were happening too fast. Everything was going wrong. Momma wasn't supposed to be hurt. I wanted to say this, but the face of John Amos was twisted, his lips snarled as he advanced on my grandmother.
"Cathy, Cathy," she pleaded, down on her knees and cradling my mother's head, "please don't die. I love you. I've always loved you. I never meant for any of you to die. I nev--"
The whack was so hard she slumped over the body of my mother.
Rage was in my head. Cindy was screaming. "John Amos!" I yelled. "That wasn't in God's plan!"
He turned, smiling and confident. "Yes, it was, Bart. God spoke to me last night and told me what to do. Didn't you hear your mother say she was going far-far away? She wouldn't take a bothersome boy like you with her, would she? Wouldn't she put you away first in some institution? Then she'd go, and never would you see her again, Bart. Just like your greatgrandfather, you'd be abandoned forever. Just like your grandmother you'd be locked up, and you'd never see her again either! That's the cruel way life treats those who try to do their best. And it's me, only me who is trying to take care of you and see you escape confinement worse than prison."
Prison, prison, so much like poison.
"Bart, are you listening? Have you heard? Do you understand I'm doing what I can to save both of them for you?"
I stared at him; didn't really understand anything. "Yes, Bart, instead of one, you will have two souvenirs."
Didn't know what or who to believe. I stared down at the two women on the floor, my momma, my grandmother who had fallen crosswise over the slight body of my momma. It came over me in an
overwhelming flood--I loved those two women. I loved them more than I'd known I had. Wouldn't want to stay alive if I lost one, much less two. Were they as evil as John Amos had said? Would God punish me if I kept them from being "redeemed" by fire?
And there he was in front of me, John Amos, the only one who had been fully honest with me from the beginning, telling me from the start who my real daddy was, who my real grandmother was, who Malcolm the wise and clever was.
I looked into his small narrow eyes for instructions. God was behind John Amos or else he wouldn't have lived to be so old.
He smiled and chucked me under the chin, and I shivered. Didn't like people to touch me when I couldn't even feel the touch.
"Now listen to me carefully, Bart. First you are to take Cindy home. Then you make her swear not to tell anything or you will cut out her little pink tongue. Can you make her promise?"
Numbly I nodded. Had to make Cindy promise. "You won't hurt my momma and my grandmomma?"
"Of course not, Bart. I'll just put them away where they'll be safe. You can see them whenever you want. But not one word to that man who calls himself your father. Not one word. Remember he, too, will take you away from your home and have you locked up. He thinks you're crazy too. Don't you know that's why they keep taking you to shrinks?"
I swallowed; my throat hurt. Didn't know what to do.