Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

together. Alex thundered back into the kitchen, the shotgun in his hands.
    “You comin’ or not?” He looked like a man possessed as he shouted at Ben Roy.
    “Comin’? Where the hell you think we goin’?” Pushing Fedora almost onto Eula’s lap, Ben Roy rushed up to Alex.
    “For God’s sake. To catch that damn train, of course.” Alex turned toward the back door, but Ben Roy wrapped an arm around his shoulder.
    “You ain’t doin’ no such a thing. Hell, man, that train done left Clarksville two hours ago. It’s clean to Kentucky by now. You can’t catch no train.” Ben Roy took a quick look at the women, jerked his head toward Fedora, and slammed the porch door.
    “Let’s get you to the parlor and onto yo’ settee,” Fedora soothed. “You can rest better there. You been workin’ too hard, Eula Mae.” Fedora kept her eyes on the shut door.
    “If you ain’t goin’, then get out of my damn way,” Alex’s voice shouted through the closed door. “I’m after me a train.”
    “And what the hell you gonna do if you catch that train?” Ben Roy yelled at Alex.
    “The same damn thing you and Wiley George should have helped me with two nights ago,” Alex roared. “Run that nigger out of town.”
    “He is outta town, damn it. He left this mornin’. Ain’t that what you wanted? Bobby Lee says the tickets was one way fo’ Chicago. They ain’t comin’ back. Not none of ’em.” Ben Roy’s barked words were lost in the moan of pain Eula heard erupt from Alex’s throat.
    She felt Fedora try to pick her up bodily from the chair. Eula clung to the edge of the table.
    “That’s a damn lie. He’s takin’ her against her will. I’m gettin’ her off that train. She promised me…” Alex’s shouts could be heard straight to Lawnover, Eula was certain.
    “She’s the man’s wife. She can’t make you no damn promises,” Ben Roy shouted right back at her husband. “Alex, it’s over.”
    “I can’t. I can’t do it. Don’t you know that I can’t let her go? I love h…” The sound of fist against flesh and bone rocketed through the porch door.
    Eula felt Fedora lurch at the commotion.
    “Are you fo’ sure crazy? You can love her all you want, you just can’t say it out loud, and you sure as hell can’t keep her.” The sounds of a scuffle bumped out of the porch as Ben Roy shouted.
    “I’m gonna bring her back. Her and my baby. It’s me she wants, not that n…” Bone against muscle shook the room.
    From the crashes on her porch, Eula was certain that not even one wall would be left standing.
    “You ain’t doin’ no such a thing, and you ain’t sayin’ them words to another livin’ soul. Talk like that will get us all killed,” Ben Roy panted.
    “I don’t give a damn.” The sounds of wrestling on the floor blasted into the kitchen.
    “You’d better give a lot of damns, ’cause ain’t no power on earth gonna let you love a colored woman and live it out loud. Not here in Tennessee.” Ben Roy struggled for breath as the most soul-rattling sound Eula ever heard emerged in a keen, low moan from her husband.
    Eula lurched in a haze. Fedora shouted words at her that she couldn’t understand. Her sister-in-law may as well have been speaking Geechee.
    “What you gonna do with that?” Fedora’s face went white. Eula followed the short woman’s horrified gaze to her own hand, where she held her just-sharpened chicken-butchering knife. Fedora pushed on Eula’s hand with all her might, but it felt like a ladybug crawling up her arm.
    “I’m goin’ to kill Alex.” She said it just like she asked her husband if he wanted a third cup of breakfast coffee.
    Eula started toward the door, each foot feeling like a dozen horseshoes were nailed to it. Almost at the porch, she didn’t see it coming. The chair crashed across her back and she stumbled. The knife skittered from her hand. Fedora kicked it to the other side of the kitchen.
    “Get on into this parlor, now.” Fedora put her full weight behind her sister-in-law and shoved her into the front parlor.
    Eula’s feet stumbled out from under her but not before Fedora gave her a final push in the direction of the settee. Eula fell more on than off of the horsehair-stuffed sofa. Fedora grabbed both of Eula’s feet and draped them over one arm. She pushed a pillow under her head and started for the sideboard after she first slammed the door to the kitchen.
    “Where the hell does Alex keep the key to the whiskey?”