A respected minister is found murdered in Bear Creek, Tennessee. His stepdaughter Belle goes on the run at age fifteen. It seems as if her dream of becoming a country singing star has ended. Belle says she killed the minister because he has raped her since age nine. She survives and supports herself by hitchhiking, lying, stealing and stripping. Nine years later she's arrested and faces life imprisonment or execution. She has supporters; her brother Jesse and his band, One Night Stand; Las Vegas Detective Frank Smith, who has fallen for her; friend Charlotte Force, and top defense attorney Oliver Force. But can they save her when the evidence against her is overwhelming?
PROLOGUE Belle 1946 . The Greyhound waiting room is empty except for me and the man behind the counter. He’s tall and gangly, like a teenage basketball star. But his voice is deep and gravely. “Where to, young lady?” I rise up on my toes and look over his shoulder. I study the blackboard behind him. Scribbled in chalk is the information I need. The next bus leaving is to Los Angeles. “Los Angeles, please, sir.” I think he’s looking at me kind of funny when I pay for the ticket. So I force a smile and say, “I’m going to visit my Granny.” Does he think it’s strange that I don’t have a suitcase? “My things were sent ahead,” I say. “My Ma doesn’t want me to lose them.” I pick up my little bag and hitch it onto my shoulder. “She had to go on to work now.” His face becomes more relaxed and he asks, “Name, please?” “Belle. Belle Carter Williams.” He writes it on the ticket. I take a seat on the far side of the waiting room, under a miner’s mural. I think, maybe my life isn’t as hard as the life of those men. They’re emerging from a cave in the side of the mountain, wearing hard hats and carrying lunch pails. It’s the look on their faces, though, that makes me pause. Their faces are drawn, weary-looking, as if they’ve been beaten. I see that look on our neighbor, Mr. Sounder, when he comes home from working the mine. I saw it many times on my Daddy’s face, even though he wasn’t a miner. The clerk is looking at me again. I’m afraid he’s going to pick up the phone and call the police any minute. But I’m forty miles from home and I don’t think they know I’m gone yet. They’ll find out that I bought a ticket to Nashville at the Greyhound station in Bear Creek, but not for awhile. The Greyhound window in the drug store only opens when a bus is due and I took the last one of the day. I’m shaking all over and can’t seem to stop. The bench where I sit is hard and my bare legs stick to it. Even in the heat my stomach feels like a block of ice. The clerk looks at me from across the room, and says, “Are you all right?” I don’t answer. I just get up and go into the rest room. I splash cold water on my face. The roll-out towel is dirty so I dry my face on my shirt. I open the stall door and sit on the toilet and sob, hoping I can’t be heard in the waiting room. I don’t know what to do but I know that I don’t want to go to jail. I just sit there, drying my eyes and reading the handwritten scrawls on the wall “Kilroy was here.” “Mary loves Steve forever;” “Josie fucks anyone,” followed by a phone number. I take out a pen and write, “Belle was here but not for long.” I get up from the toilet and wash my hands, dry them on my shirt again. I take a seat in the waiting room facing a big window with my back to the clerk. He has turned aside, writing something in his books. Three more people have come into the room. I look around but they don’t seem to notice me. I watch the gray-haired man and woman inspect their tickets; hold them close to their glasses and squint. They remind me of my Granny and Grandpa. I wish I had known them better. I think of how much they loved me and how I just did whatever I wanted without considering them. I want to go to the phone and hear Granny say, “How’s my angel?” But I can’t; they’re dead now. A man of maybe thirty with a GI haircut and a duffel bag at his side sits in the next row of seats He is gazing out the window and rubbing his hands together as if he’s washing them. A woman comes through the door with a young boy. The boy is blond and blue-eyed. He must be eight or nine years old. He looks around, wide-eyed. They walk to the ticket window and the clerk raises his head from his books. The boy looks so much like my brother when he was a kid that I stare at him. He catches me looking at him and I wave. He waves back. His mother grabs his hand and takes him to a seat. I was six and my brother was nine when his Aunt Mary came and took him away. I watched as he climbed into the front seat of the old Ford, squeezing his cousin Jack closer to his mother. Ma lifted his box of clothes into the truck bed and sighed. Then she slammed the truck door shut. “Bye, now, Jesse. Be good!” She said. Jesse turned and rolled down the window. He looked at me, his eyes wet, his left hand in a slow wave. I waved, too, looking at him through a jagged prism of tears. The truck pulled away and I ran after it until I could no longer see it in the cloud of dust. I wandered back and sat under the weeping willow tree. Ma came and dragged me into the house. I shut the door to my room and cried for days. Nothing that Ma said could make me stop. The bus will be here in twenty minutes. I look at the woman with the young boy. She raises her eyes from her book and smiles at the boy. I wish I had a mother like her.
Ma and I haven’t talked much lately, except for her telling me I should be nicer to Bart. For my fifteenth birthday six months ago she didn’t even have a party for me. “You’re grown up now and parties are for little kids,” she said. Her fingers drummed the table as she talked. She’s been nervous lately and her headaches come more often. She looked out the window, and then back at me “Why don’t you go to Alice’s house and spend the day with her?” I thought she probably wanted me out of the house for her Bible study group. I didn’t mind. It gave me the chance to avoid my stepfather. I did go to Alice’s house on my birthday. Then we walked two miles down the path through Bear Holler woods to the cabin my Daddy built. My brother left his Aunt Mary’s house and moved into the cabin when he turned eighteen, six months ago. His cousin Jack moved in with him when he came back from the war. Their friend Tennessee was there so much that he finally moved in, too. Then Dave, Jack’s buddy from the Army, came to join them. So there were four of them jammed into the cabin. They formed a band called One Night Stand. I’ve seen them a lot the last few months. I guess I was trying to make up for all the time Jesse and I were apart. Ma and Bart don’t like it but I go anyhow. The guys let me sing with them when they practice. Jesse says that I can join the band when I’m eighteen. Now it might never happen. Maybe I’ll never see him again. Ma sent Jesse away when our Daddy died. She said, now that he was an orphan, he was better off with his mother’s sister. I didn’t see why he would be better off. He hardly knew his Aunt Mary. He was with my Ma for seven years and she always said how she was his mother when she married our Daddy. So how come she didn’t act like his mother.
Tears spill onto my cheeks, but no one in the station looks at me. The clerk is still bent over his books. The gray-haired couple is deep in conversation. The man is pointing to the miner mural on the far wall. The woman pats his shoulder twice; so tenderly that it makes my throat feel tight. The quiet man is still staring out the window, eyes half shut. The boy is playing with a toy car and his mother is reading her book. I wipe my face with the sleeve of my shirt. More people are coming through the door and lining up in front of the clerk. A wave of fear crashes over me every time another person comes into the room. Where I sit, the window is smudged and dirty. I keep looking for the bus. It seems like it will never come. I shift my weight, bracing myself with my hands on the bench seat. Someone has stuck gum under the bench and my fingers pull back in disgust. In the doorway, I see a big man surveying the room with intense dark eyes, and my stomach does a flip-flop. But he goes to the ticket counter and I see that it isn’t Black Bart.
Yesterday, my room was really hot. I was changing into my shorts when Bart knocked just once before opening the door. “You’re not wearing those shorts. They’re way too skimpy.” His voice was so loud it hurt my ears. My fingers were shaking and I could hardly button my shorts. I looked up. My stepfather’s big frame filled the doorway. Every time I saw him my heart thumped in my chest and my breath stopped. Bart had lots of black hair and it was so thick it sat on his head like a hat, no matter how much he tried to slick it down. His eyes were deep-set; cold and dark His lips lay in a thin wide line that looked like it was pasted on his face. He was wearing a black suit and his white Reverend collar “The Bible says a woman should dress modestly.” His bushy black brows frowned and almost met above his nose. “Those shorts are not modest, so change them.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I won’t. You’re not my father. You can’t tell me what to do.” I decided right then that he wouldn’t bully me anymore. He hesitated; seemed surprised. “You will. As long as I’m the head of this house you will do as I say.” The heavy brows raised and deep lines formed on his forehead. “Ma will let me wear them.” I edged toward the door but he was blocking the way. I called out, “Ma?” “Your mother is not here.” I felt my throat closing. We were alone. Usually I manage to get out of the house when Ma is gone but this time she didn’t tell me she was leaving. “Where is she?” I willed my voice not to quiver. “At Marj’s Beauty Shop, getting her hair done. She said about three hours.” He sounded smug and confident. I said, “I have to go. Alice is waiting for me.” He smiled and took hold of my shoulders. His hands felt rough and tight, like a vise. My eyes searched the room for a way out, but he blocked the only exit. “Come on, Belle, you know I love you.” His voice was soft, the harshness gone. “I want what’s best for you. Come, give me a hug.” I had avoided him for a long time but I was finally trapped. His hand was rough on my left breast and his lips wet my cheek. I thought, maybe it was time to tell Ma about him. Now that I’m older I don’t believe that God speaks to him or that God wants us to be together. But I do still believe that it would break Ma’s heart if she knew. We have our differences but she is still my mother. And like she says, blood is thicker than water. Bart’s hands were all over me, groping, on my stomach and pushing into my shorts. I brought my right knee up hard into his balls. He groaned, bent over and grabbed his groin with both hands, letting me go. But he still blocked the door. His eyes looked hard into my face, wide with surprise. What was I thinking; now he’ll be angry enough to hit me like he did the first time I tried to stop him. I backed away, sweat dripped into my eyes and I shuddered. My legs felt like they would collapse and throw me onto the ground. “Hello, where is everyone?” Ma’s voice echoed through the parlor. I felt weak with relief. Bart stepped backwards, dropping his arms to his side as if they had touched hot coals. The way was clear so I walked fast out the bedroom door. I lowered my eyes so she couldn’t see the fear. “Marj’s boy broke his arm and she couldn’t keep our appointment. Now my hair will be a mess all week.” Her voice was loud and angry sounding. She fluffed her hair with her fingers. “Hi, Ma, I’m just on my way to Alice’s.” She didn’t answer so I looked up. She was staring at Bart who stood in the doorway of my bedroom. “Nadine, tell Belle she cannot wear those shorts. She has defied me once again.” He looked composed, his voice sincere and pleading. Ma looked at me, mouth open. I turned and glared at Bart. I thought here’s one he can’t get out of. She sees that he was in my room. Then he walked over to Ma, put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. “I just closed the window in Belle’s room. I know it’s hot, but the flies are coming in.” Ma smiled at him, then turned to me. “Belle, the Reverend is right. You need to change your clothes.” I stared at them both for a moment. God, he’s slick. Silence hung in the air. “Not likely,” I said. I let the front door slam behind me. Last night I saw Bart at the church dance, sponsoring and preaching. Ma was home with a headache. He looked at me and frowned. I stared back. Alice caught my look; followed my eyes to his face. Then the bastard smiled and waved. He actually smiled. As soon as Alice went to the bathroom, I left the dance.
I wander back into the bathroom. Better go before the bus gets here. The bathroom lights are flickering. I look like someone in an old time movie. My face in the mirror looks tired and drawn, like those miners in the picture. My hair is stringy and dull, the color of river water on a cloudy day. This morning, Sheriff McMahan came to tell Ma that her husband was dead. My mother married Bart six years ago. When he couldn’t hear me I called him Black Bart. Even though I was only nine, I knew there was something wrong with him. They didn’t know I was listening in my bedroom. I heard the Sheriff asking for me. He told Ma that once I said I would kill my stepfather if he didn’t leave me alone. This is true; I did say that. Who could blame me if they knew the truth about him? But I’m not going to jail. I’m not. I return to my seat just as the overhead speakers announce the bus’s arrival. It’s that time in the evening when the sun has set but it’s not yet dark. The lights come on in the waiting room. I stand and turn towards the door. The man behind the counter raises his head and smiles at me. I try to smile back but I just can’t. Instead I follow the others outside and climb the bus’s metal steps. I feel nauseated when the exhaust fumes hit me. A breeze cools my legs. They’re sticky from sitting on the bench. I hand my ticket to the driver who takes it without looking at me. Then I walk the length of the bus past the seats full of people. I can tell that some of them have been on the bus for a long time. Their eyes are bleary and they look tired. The new arrivals settle into their seats and stow their belongings. Finally I reach the very back, behind the Negro section, and sit down on the wide empty seat. A Negro woman gets up to give me her seat, closer to the front. I shake my head and she looks at the bus driver, who is adjusting his seat. She sits down again. The lights dim and the bus pulls out of the station. Black Bart is dead and I killed him.
About Betty Shafer
Betty Shafer is a long-time student of the human condition. Writer and ER Nurse, she has observed people at their best and at their worst.and is always seeking ways to imortalize them on paper. She writes magazine articles, poetry and essays. Her first book, Speak to Me in Poetry, was published in 2005. One Night Stand is her first novel. A sequel, On The Road, is in progress. Her cat Rosie lets her live with her in a small community near Mount Rainier in Washington State.
A respected minister is found murdered in Bear Creek, Tennessee. His stepdaughter Belle goes on the run at age fifteen. It seems as if her dream of becoming a country singing star has ended. Belle says she killed the minister because he has raped her since age nine. She survives and supports herself by hitchhiking, lying, stealing and stripping. Nine years later she's arrested and faces life imprisonment or execution. She has supporters; her brother Jesse and his band, One Night Stand; Las Vegas Detective Frank Smith, who has fallen for her; friend Charlotte Force, and top defense attorney Oliver Force. But can they save her when the evidence against her is overwhelming?
Betty Shafer is a long-time student of the human condition. Writer and ER Nurse, she has observed people at their best and at their worst.and is always seeking ways to imortalize them on paper. She writes magazine articles, poetry and essays. Her first book, Speak to Me in Poetry, was published in 2005. One Night Stand is her first novel. A sequel, On The Road, is in progress. Her cat Rosie lets her live with her in a small community near Mount Rainier in Washington State.