Broken Branch Read Online Free PDF Page B

flushed red.
    â€œListen to me,” she said. “I think you need to go. You’re strong and able-bodied. You have your whole life ahead of you. You can find work. I know it’s hard out there, but this place isn’t good for a boy. Otto isn’t good for you.” She wanted to say more. She wanted to tell him that she and the kids would join him, that they’d go together, help each other out, but she wasn’t ready yet. She had to think, she had to plan more. Rodney and Mary would have to be prepared, and there was still James to think about too. She wasn’t sure if what she felt for him could still be called love, but it was something like it. A loyalty, a commitment. She wanted a little more time to figure all of that out.
    â€œI don’t know . . .” he said. “Otto says I’d be a fool to leave. He says it’s like poking my finger in God’s eye after all he’s done for me, but . . . can I tell you a secret? Just between the two of us?”
    She nodded, resisting the urge she felt suddenly to kiss his mouth. How old was the boy? No more than twenty, surely. And here was Trudy nearly thirty and married. It was wrong, the kinds of thoughts she would be punished for.
    â€œOtto scares me. He . . .”
    â€œGo on.”
    Just then Rodney woke up. “Momma?”
    She turned and gathered him in her arms. When she turned back to face Simpson again, he’d already started back to the clearing.
    â€œLeave,” she said, but she wasn’t sure if he heard her.

11
    â€œWho was that old man?” Rodney said as they walked hand in hand back toward the clearing.
    â€œHis name was G.L.,” she whispered. “He was very old.”
    Rodney nodded. “I want to see the swamp.”
    There was something about the way he said it—the matter-of-fact tone, the way his small, soft voice brooked no argument about the place’s existence—that frightened Trudy a little. Frightened and also thrilled her.
    â€œMe too,” she said and kissed his forehead.

12
    By the time she returned to the clearing with Rodney, the crowd had already gathered behind the oak tree. For as long as she could remember, the area just behind the tree had been a massive tangle of underbrush and layered kudzu. It was so thick and dark that the task of removing it had always seemed too daunting, and the community had settled for just cutting it back when it seemed to encroach upon the clearing.
    Now a crowd of people watched as G.L. tore the vines away by hand, ignoring the sharp briars that made his hands bleed. He was sweating heavily and swaying from side to side, clearly about to pass out. Yet no one moved to help him.
    Trudy stood beside James. “What’s happening?”
    James shrugged. “Old coot says there’s a swamp under that mess.”
    â€œAnd we’re going to stand by while he kills himself trying to get to it?”
    â€œI’ve tried to speak reason to him, Trudy.” She craned her neck to see Otto standing on the other side of James. “He’s clearly not well.”
    â€œClearly,” Trudy said. She stepped forward and put a hand on his back. “Mr. G.L.?”
    He stopped and turned around. His mouth opened into a slack grin.
    â€œWhy don’t you take a break?”
    â€œNo, ma’am. I don’t have long. I want to see the swamp again before I go.”
    Trudy couldn’t say why—maybe it was because of the conversation she’d just had with Rodney, or maybe it was because the old man, in an odd way, reminded her of her son—but she felt the urge to help him.
    So she did. She dug into the vines and pulled an armful away.
    â€œTrudy,” Otto warned, “this is not the work of the Lord.”
    Trudy ignored him and kept pulling vines. In fact, she increased her speed, working steadily until she too was sweating.
    There were murmurs from the crowd, and