Seth
The clay dirt between the pecan tree and front porch had been swept. A few cane-bottomed chairs, leaning as if in a great wind, had been set out. Scattered around them were some rusty buckets turned bottoms-up. Aunt Louisa did all this. She'd been in a fiz since breakfast when we got the final word. I'm sitting with knees drawn up, back against the pecan tree, the rough bark pressing into my bare skin. I blink slow against the late-morning sun as it scorches the land. Aimlessly I push my finger along a squiggly line made by Louisa's corn broom. I'm hoping to trace the outline of a dove. If I do? Why I'll roll my eyes back and murmur a spell. The winged form will ooze from the earth. It'll grow till it blots out the sun, then it will turn its cotton-white head, golden eye blinking; calling me. I'd stand, slap the dust from my feet and climb up. In a rush of wings we'd soar from this place, and this day; forever. God made Adam out of dust, why can't I make a bird. My finger bumps against something. I look down, pooch my lip, line dead-ends at the tree. "Seth. Where you at, boy!?" Aunt Louisa's shrill voice shatters my daydream. I crane my neck. She's standing over by the mailbox, empty mason jar in her hand. Sagging, dull-orange marigolds at her water-splotched bare feet. "Seth. You betta answer me!" I say nothing. Smile, as crimson rises up Louisa's thick neck. She marches over to the pump, grips the handle and starts pumping. Murky water trickles into the jar. The jar full, she stomps back to the flowers, dumps it. Water's sucked down by the dry-cracked dirt. �The Lord giveth,' but the dirt taketh away. "Say boy. Whatchoo doin'?" Voice thin and wavering, "You ought to be out chopin' cotton with Silas and Tich." I turn. Pap Amon, he's my great-granddaddy, is eeking his way toward me. Pap's closing in on a hundred. When the weather's good he passes time rocking beneath the pecan tree, his gray- filmed eyes, like chat-rock, forever searching the cotton rows between the house and river. Funny thing about Pap, he's been having these visions lately. Last winter is when Pap had his first one. It was late evening and the sun's fingers reached from west to east for the first stars brilliant against the eggplant sky. He made this little jerk, like you do sometimes right before you fall asleep and some mist of dream jolts you, then smiled, scattered teeth like burnt stumps, as if he had been told a great secret. "They're out there again." Pap whispered one spring evening when the cotton was a knee high emerald ocean. "Who pap? I mumbled, staring at the wire-topped stone wall across the field. "The innocent ones." he said, "I see'em over by the river, facing west. Heads reared back. Arms stretched out wide as if they was holdin' all the pain in the world. They hands is strokin' the cotton-tops like a mama touches a newborn babe." A leathery hand brushed along my neck. Prickles ran down my arms. "Do ya' see'em?" Pap said as he turned to me, caught me in his eyes like a trapeze net catches the one that falls. "Can you see'em, Seth?" A tear glistened on his cheek. Uncle Silas had overheard him. He took his shotgun and went tromping around. Came back in the gathering curtain of darkness with the noise of crickets and bullfrogs. Said he didn't see nothin'. Said Pap was losing his mind. I had looked, and to this day wonder about those wispy tendrils of mist that disappeared into the last ray of sunlight. "You been here all along, boy?" I nearly jump out of my skin. That she-cat Louisa found me. "Yes, Ma'am. I was waiting for Pap to come out. So I could help him if need be." I cast a pleading look toward him. Louisa shifts her rat-black eyes to Pap. "That true?" "Sho is, Louisa. Why, Seth was just asking me if I needed any hep gettin' �round all this stuff." Dull �tung' as he bangs his hickory cane against one of the buckets. He shows that stumpy grin. My heart swells. "Um, hmmm." Louisa purses her lips. Stares icicles through me. I feel my balls shrivel. "Go pick a bushel of beans. I got to cook a big mess for the company." Louisa turns, lumpy hips jiggling. "I wont be here for supper. Be fishing with daddy." She snorts and lumbers on into the house. Bushel baskets smelling of dried cane and colored like straw are stored in a weathered-gray shed back of the house. I hang my head and slog around the corner. Something slams into my back. Stars burst in head. Breath gushes from me. I fall face first and winch against a crushing weight. I strain to draw a breath. "Say �uncle' you scum." A voice hisses in my ear. "Tich!" For reasons I can never figure my cousin Tich hates me. It wasn't the kind of teasing hate an older cousin has for a younger one. There was just pure ol' meanness behind his muddy eyes. Calloused hand pushes the back of my head. Hot dirt floods my nose and mouth. I grit my teeth and clamp my lips flat. "Say �uncle' and I'll let you up. You don't-" bolt of sharp pain as I feel my right arm wrench up behind my back. "-I'll break this arm." I shake my head. Tich, cackling like a mad hen, twists harder. Pressure builds in my shoulder. "Come on you sissy. Say it!" Tears sting my eyes. I moan. "Seth! How come I don't see you out'n the garden?" The rare time when I welcome Louisa's voice. Tich curses and quickly pulls me up, ramming me against the house. I bend, hands on knees gasping for air and see Louisa waddle around the corner, bushel basket swinging in her hand. "Here we are, Mama. Seth fell and I helped him up." Tich's voice syrupy. He pats my back as I spit a gob of rust-colored muck onto the ground. Louisa looks us over for a minute, then shakes her big head. "Seth, you so clumsy boy. Now git to work." She throws the basket at me. "Come on in the house Tich," She purrs like a momma cat, "and I'll get you something cool to drink." Tich brushes past and I stagger out to the withered garden. I'd rather gag down turpentine for, �what ails ya,' than pick green beans. Hunched over moving from bush to bush. Sun beats you into the baked earth. Squinching your eyes you look under wilted leaves for the long green pods. When you see'em, reach in and gently pull the drought wrinkled bean from the plant. Yank too hard and half the bean dangles. I leave any danglin' and Louisa would beat me; again. Can't ever seem to pick them fast. Or do anything fast for that matter. Something always catches my eye or tugs my mind in a new direction. Like the lazy summer-breeze sway of the sweet gums down by the river. Or Pap timelessly rocking under the sun-dappled pecan. And pondering about my daddy. I don't hardly recall my dad. Just out of reach he flits around my mind. Unseen, haunting yet comforting. Like a turtle dove hunkered down somewhere in the cotton cooing in the dusk. Daddy's supposed to be tall, wide shouldered with spring-blue eyes that draw you along like honeysuckle on spring winds. He has a smile that can charm Lucifer, or so Pap says. Before daddy's big trouble, I'd hear of him sneaking down from the hills to hang with those Sullins' down at the curve: a clapboard hooch joint about a mile from town. Sometimes daddy would send word he was coming. Usually by that liar Luce Sullins. Luce, on his way to Warden Duraunt's place to work the stables, would slink by, hands shoved in pockets, see me at the tree and drawl, "Hey boy, yer daddy said he'd be down this comin' Sat'day." He'd sneer beneath his droopy hat, then add, "Said to keep yer fishin' pole handy." So come that Saturday I'd wait by the pecan tree with a cane pole and can of worms at my feet. The afternoon would wane, heat rippling over the fields into soft-shadowed evening. When the stars twinkled their wishes Pap would come out, wipe the tears from my cheeks then sit next to me in his rocker. I'd fall asleep to the rhythmic creak of Pap's chair, his warm hand on my shoulder. I'd been with Uncle Silas's family since last winter. All I remember is one day waking up in a strange bed, Tich sniggering at me. Pap says I have a memory lapse. Won't tell me how come, or what caused it. Tich won't even tell, afraid of what Pap might do to him, I guess. Pap just says my mama ran off an I gave daddy great comfort, for awhile anyway. "Seth. Where's those beans.!?" Silas voice, booming like a confederate cannon, blasts from the other side of the house. I stand, shake the cobwebs from my head. My thin shadow long against the shallow depression left in the dirt. Bushel basket nearly full of beans. Enough I hope. I pick it up and run, rough surface slapping my thighs. Breathless I stand on the porch. Shoulders aching as I hold the basket. Tich, Silas and Louisa are shucking corn. Chickens cluck and scratch around in the pile of green shucks and honey colored streamers searching for a wormy cut-end. "About time." Tich smirks. Chicken squawks as he nails a tobacco streamer on its beak. "There were a lot of beans," I mumble. "Give'em here, boy. Hey, Pap. Give a hand snapping these beans." I look up. Silas, hands the size of dinner plates reaches for the basket. Ember of warmth in his almond eyes. "How's the cotton Uncle Silas?" "Dry, boy. Mighty dry. We don't get some rain we'll have a slim year." "Hey, almost forgot. There was a knifing down at the curve last night," Tich blurts, eyes glowing. "Anybody we know?" Louisa deftly slices off a wormy end. She's real good with a knife. "Naw, just one of those city-slicker newspapermen lurking around. Hoping someone would give him the lowdown about tonight." He leans forward, thin face taught. "See, me and Jess was hanging around the train station-" " Dog it Tich," Louisa shakes her knife at him, "I told you to stop hanging round that Jess Sullins. Them Sullins's is what turned him in." Tich rolls his eyes, " -when sudden like Percy Evens' model T barreled into town kickin' up a storm of dust. Percy skidded to a stop in front of Doc Smiths place. Nearly ran up on the porch. The men-folk drug this fella out. That boy was white as a ghost and moanin', blood oozin' from his laid open guts. Jess puked when they carried him past us." "Did he live?" Pap spoke up, eyes soft. "Yea. Doc, he came out about an hour later and told us the man would pull through." "Who did it?" Flare of a match as Silas lit his pipe. "Don't know." Tich spit and looks away. Louisa, face gone blank, stares at the stone wall a mile across the field. Silas squints his eyes deep, soft glow in his pipe dish as he takes a long pull. "Louisa, you ok?" "I'm fine. It's just. . ." Louisa starts, then rips a handful of shucks and throws them toward the wall where they flutter far short onto the dirt. In the pinkish glow of sunset they start arriving. Two creaking wagons filled with dirty faced women and kids, driven by with men with stooped shoulders from life and circumstance. A few amble in from across the fields. Even Percy Evans came chucking along in his model T. The grownups walk by me, offer condolences and tussle my hair. Gently they take Pap's hand and ask how he's getting along: "Tolerable, tolerable," he says and smiles. All the time not feeling tolerable at all. I knew Pap, and he was hurting tonight. Hurting inside where liniment could never in million years sooth the ache. Children walk a half-circle around me. Look at me from under bunched eyebrows, like you would a favorite pet gone rabid. "Be a full moon tonight Seth," Pap says after they've all scattered around the yard. "Yea. Figure about midnight to go fishing. Hopin' maybe daddy'll meet me there" I look to Pap, heart suddenly beating like a racehorse, "Can you come?" He looks toward the river, sighs long and deep as only the wise can. Wrinkles in his face smooth. He gives that little jerk. My breath catches. "He sees them." Pap cocks his head like a dog listening, trying to figure out what he's supposed to do. Then he moves his head stiffly up and down. Up and down. Twice. I snap my head toward the river. Eyes wide searching for the tendrils of mist winding toward the last golden beam of sunlight. I frown, puzzled. Nothing. "I take you fishin', Seth. We'll go right �afore midnight." Pap's voice empty, like he was talking in his sleep. I feel a cold sinking twist in my gut. As if you woke from sleepwalking and found yourself outside in a dark winter fog. Dirt cold against your feet. Heart thumpin' in your throat. You wonder can you find your way back home. Or will you wander in darkness forever begging for a ray of light to penetrate the blackness. Folks, plates mounded with fried chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and green beans lounge around wolfing down food. My stomach churns. I don't even try to eat. Just sit beneath the pecan, stare at the river. Every now and then, on the soft breeze, I'll hear a bit of talk: "There weren't no witnesses. . ." "Never found the body. . ." "He should'a throwed those bloody clothes away. . . " "Heard she was back east. . . " "Hey." Uncle Pete, the story teller in the family spoke up, "Remember that time Hank got the preacher's mule to guzzle whiskey and black drought." Chairs creak as people lean forward. Others ease from the shadows toward the porch. "It were Hank's idea. He was always leading me and Silas astray. When we was oh, �bout thirteen, one Sunday a half hour before church service, Hank slips this oversized nipple to one of Eugene Nevels gallon jugs. Now that jug had a mix of Eugene's brew, black draught and molasses." Smiles grow on faces. Teeth pearly in the light. A few " Oh boys," drifted out. "Silas and me waited all bugy eyed behind the big oak the mule was tethered to as ol' Hank sweet-talked it. Shore enough, directly it nuzzled the bottle and soon took the nipple. Once that gangly mule got a taste, why he slurped it down like a Saturday night Baptist. Nervous as could be we all snuck into church and waited. Long �bout thirty minutes into the service there was this long ear splitting bray. Ever'body sat bolt-up cause the preacher was shoutin' �bout the trumpet of the second comin'! Then; splat-splat-splat," Pete slaps his hands together, "That mule just craps all over creation. Then it started braying the blues. It got so bad the preacher, all red- faced, had to call the service. The animal was to drunk too ride so the preacher had to lead the braying, staggering, crapping thing through town." Everyone explodes in a laughing fit. Folks were slapping each other on the backs, bent over grabbing their stomachs. Silas fell over backwards in his chair. I just sit next to Pap under the tree and watch. "Whew, yea," Pete dabs his eyes with a kerchief, "Hank was something else." "Hank still, is, something else." Pap says with his face set and a strength in his voice I'd never heard. Silence, like an autumn graveyard at midnight, settles over the yard. The somber evening drags into a tense night. Talk eases. Dull glow of pipes and cigarettes, like hovering fireflies, circle the yard. Some of the younger kids sleep beneath toe-sacks in the wagon bed. Soft glow of lanterns light thoughtful faces. "Any you boys going over to see?" Silas asks, snapping his timepiece shut. "Can't bear to see �im like that Silas." Uncle Pete answers, "Figure to stay here till after, then go home and get good and drunk." "Wonder where Millie's at?" Pete says rubbing the whiskers along his chin. My head jerks toward the porch at the mention of mama's name. I see Louisa's poochy face comes to life. "I never liked that woman!" Louisa hacks out the words like one would a lung infection. "She had the sweets for Billy. Hank out workin' the fields plus over here doing stuff. She, she planned it. I tell ya' that Jezebel planned to run off." She wipes a thick hand across her mouth. "That's one wench I bet they never find." A chill screwed up my backbone. "Hank was never the same after that. It's what changed him." She slumps like a dropped sack of potatoes. Heads bob in agreement. A soft shadow passed across Louisa's face when she spoke daddy's name. Same eye- widening look she has when Silas brushes the inside of her thigh with his hand when he thinks no one is looking. I jump at a tap on my shoulder. Silently Pap rises, and I follow, can of worms and cane pole in my left hand. Holding, wishing I could forever, Paps' leather-soft hand in my right. Goose pimples rise along my arms from the coolness of the river. Moonlight, like a new nickel, sparkles on the swirling surface of the water. Pap and I stand in the narrow dirt path, cotton stretching to the edge of the earth on either side of us. Over at the wall a big generator coughs, sputters, then settles into a steady drone. Tears dribble down my cheeks. "You stay put a minute," Pap says softly and shuffles forward a few feet. I squeeze my eyes, bow my head against the rising thrum of the generator. A thump. Blinking back tears I look up. Pap's canes on the ground. He's standing stiff as a board. Shoulders square, head reared back, arms spread wide. His crooked fingers dance over the cotton tops. That cold feeling twists my stomach. "Pap, I'm-" the words choke off. Out of nowhere I see them. Must be a hundred of them lined along either side of Pap. Their arms way out, fingers dancing over the cotton. Tattered clothes flapping in a breeze I do not feel. "The innocent ones. Could daddy be with them?" My heart flip flops. My eyes dart one to another. I get dizzy. Where is he? Warm tears now flood my cheeks. In the distance Louisa's spastic shrieks roll across the dark cotton. "Please God, let him be among the innocent." Pap and the others raise their hands. Straining, reaching. Shirts billowing they lean into the breeze. They seem about to fly. I hear and feel nothing. All is silver and timeless. Dim memories come into focus. A beam of light jabs into my mind. I sink to my knees, fists to temples and rock back and forth. The generator whines down until there is only depressing silence. I stay on my knees face to the ground. Smell of mud and decay in my nostrils. Daddy's gone. He's been put in the chair and rode the lightening. Opening my eyes I straighten and see tendrils of winding mist ride the moonbeams to heaven. Pap grips my shoulder. He's stooped again, cane in his hand. "He wasn't one of them, was he." I say between sniffles. "No, no he wasn't. Your daddy didn't do all of what they said, but he wasn't innocent." Pap sets his jaw, "Come now, Seth. We gots to go do somethin'." I sit with my back against the pecan tree. Pap's chair creaking beside me. I cradle the brooch in dirt-caked hands. Pap told me right before we dug them up. Told me they were with the first ones he saw. And I remembered that, I-have-a-secret-grin Pap wore during a sparkling winters sunset. Last night the innocent ones gave my mind back to me, and told Pap where to dig. So there along the river bank beneath curtains of Spanish moss we dug them up. Clothes cut to shreds. The warden's boy, Billy Duraunt, and Mama. The horizon glows pink. Louisa, who's so good with a knife, will be coming out soon. . .
Copyright © 2002 James A McGee |