Betty

by Tiffany McDaniel

  Before I could answer, there was the sound of glass breaking in the barn. Dad started to get up, but I grabbed his arm.

  “Tell me about the Restless Star Catchers,” I said. “Who are they?”

  “You didn’t hear that noise?” he asked.

  “I didn’t hear nothin’.” I imagined all the things Fraya and Flossie could have broken in the barn. “What’s a Restless Star Catcher?”

  He looked one last time toward the barn.

  “Must have been hearin’ things,” he said, relaxing back. “Now, where was I?”

  “You were about to tell me about the Restless Star Catchers.”

  “Oh, yes.” He nodded as if ready to discuss something quite serious. “The Restless Star Catchers. They’re restless ’cause they can never stop flyin’.”

  “Why can’t they?” I asked.

  “Because they have to catch stars, which have a habit of fallin’. In fact, one fell right here to our patch of Shady Lane last night.”

  I looked past Dad to see Fraya and Flossie had managed to make it out of the barn with a jar of moonshine. From the wood line, Flossie waved for me to hurry and follow them. Her ponytail bounced as she stepped back and disappeared after Fraya among the trees. Dad turned to see what I was looking at, but he saw only the blowing leaves.

  “Where did the star fall, Dad?” I asked.

  “Oh, well, right here by the barn,” he said, pointing the spot out. “I’d show the star to ya, but I had to give it to the Restless Star Catcher. You sure you never seen one, Betty?”

  I nodded.

  “Then you’re really missin’ somethin’ special,” he said. “They’re beautiful black lions the size of our Rambler.”

  “That big?”

  “That big,” he said. “I could barely believe it myself. At first, I thought I might have been dreamin’, so I walked around his giant paws and reached out to touch his thick, cold fur. I could smell the billions of years he had lived. It smelled like the earth after a heavy rain. When I looked into the lion’s eyes, I saw no pupils or irises. His eyes were compasses. The arrows contantly spinnin’, tracking the location of several things at once.”

  Dad touched his chin as if stroking a beard as he said, “His mane was the most spectacular part of him. The way it swirled and moved like dust, but not regular dust. This was the stuff of the universe. Little silver sparkles that constantly spun and was so alive, I started cryin’.”

  “But why, Dad?”

  “Because it was so beautiful. I think the lion wondered why I was cryin’, too, for he just looked at me a moment. Then he spoke and it was deep and gentle.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “That he had come for the star. He picked it up with his large paw, then laid it on his back, where the star was absorbed into his fur, disappearin’ into the black. I thought he would leave as quickly as he had appeared. Instead his mane started to lift and divide itself. One half went out to the right, the other to the left. I thought his mane was large before, but it started growing even larger, lengthening into feathers that were simply the sparkling spirals of the dust. His mane had become his wings.

  “ ‘Are you gonna fly away now?’ I asked the great lion.

  “ ‘I can fly you to the moon to see a very special tree,’ he replied.

  “Well, hell, I wasn’t gonna miss the chance. I climbed up on his great big back and held on tight as he kicked off the ground. His wings made out of his mane left trails of light as we soared. I looked down at the world I was leavin’, before turnin’ my eyes onto the space I was enterin’. When the moon came into view, it was spectacular, Little Indian. He flew us into one of its deep craters, where a massive tree grew. The tree had blood-red bark with golden hieroglyphics. Hangin’ from the branches were purple bells of glass in which stars ripened. The lion told me I was the first human to see the tree and to pick of its fruit.

  “ ‘But you may only pick what is unripe,’ he told me, ‘for no star can live on earth, but what is meant to be a star most certainly can.’ ”

  Dad reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a cratered rock.

  “This here is the unripe star I picked,” he said, passing the rock to me.

  When he pulled up his pant leg, he showed me a purple discoloration on his right kneecap.

  “I banged my bad knee on that big ol’ tree trunk as I was climbin’ it and got this here bruise.” He laid his hand on his knee. “When folks ask why I limp, now I can say I busted my knee climbin’ the tree of stars.”

  I looked closer at the purpled discoloration. It was the same staining he had on his fingertips from the blackberry jam at breakfast.

  “Ain’t no star,” I said, holding up the rock. “Just some river litter you got from Lint. And that ain’t no bruise. It’s just you playin’ around with jam.”

  “I never thought you’d ever stop believin’, Little Indian.” His voice seemed crushed beneath the weight of the sadness setting his brow. He dropped his eyes as if the ground could have an answer.

  “I believe you went to the moon, Dad,” I said, but it was too late.

  He put his weight on his left leg and slowly stood.

  “Naw,” he said, “it’s like what ya said. It’s just a rock. Nothin’ more. It is silly to think I could ever fly to the moon, huh? Not an old Mr. Nobody like me.”

  I had put another crack in an already broken man.

  He dropped his shoulders as he turned to walk away. I wondered where his path might lead him, then Lint came running out of the house.

  “It bit me.” He held the back of his hand.

  “What did?” Dad rushed to his son.

  “A rattle-s-s-snake.” Lint let Dad see his hand.

  The wound was nothing more than two red lines Lint had drawn on his skin with a red marker.

  “It hurts, Daddy. H-h-help me.” Lint moaned in pain.

  “Let’s get ya all healed up,” Dad said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his sack of dry tobacco. He put some in his mouth and chewed on it for a few seconds.

  “The tobacco will help draw out the poison,” Dad said before putting his mouth to the two red marks.

  As Dad pretended to suck the poison out, I squeezed the rock and stepped into the woods, looking for my sisters. Almost immediately, something jumped onto my back and sent me crashing facefirst to the ground, knocking the rock out of my hand.

  “Gotcha.” Flossie shouted in my ear as she pressed her weight into my back.

  “You possum face,” I said. “Get off.”

  Flossie laughed as she stood.

  “You took forever,” she said.

  I saw Fraya standing against a tree. She was holding a jar of moonshine.

  “I told her not to surprise ya, Betty.” Fraya sighed. “But you know how Flossie is.”

  Flossie stuck her tongue out at Fraya.

  “You guys see where the unripe star went?” I asked as I got up.

  “Unripe star?” Fraya looked around.

  “There it is,” I said, spotting it at the edge of a blackberry thicket.

  I headed toward it, but Flossie grabbed my arm.

  “Are you turnin’ into Lint now?” she asked. “It’s only a stupid rock. C’mon. Fraya’s gonna show us an eagle.”

  Fraya had already taken off running, the skirt of her lavender dress flying up like a playful spirit. She was leading us through the woods to a pine grove of ancient dark trunks and sharp needles that made me think of all those fairy tales of girls being eaten by wolves.

  “The nest is up there.” Fraya stopped and pointed toward a towering pine.

  Each of us stared up at the large gathering of twigs built into the fork of two branches.

  “Dad says the eagle flies higher than any other bird,” Fraya said as she cradled the ja
r. “He says most folks think it’s a vulture that flies the highest. But they’re wrong. It’s the eagle. Dad says it’s why their heads are white. Eagles fly so high, the tops of their heads touch heaven and turn the feathers white in how holy that touch is.”

  The mother eagle screeched. She had returned and was circling above the treetop.

  “Give me some of that, will ya?” Flossie yanked the jar of moonshine out of Fraya’s hand and immediately took a drink. “Woo-wee,” she said afterward, making a pained face.

  Keeping her eyes on the eagle, Fraya got a pencil and a piece of paper out of her dress pocket.

  “I come out here to write my prayers,” she said as she tore the paper evenly into three pieces. “You two can write your prayers, too. Then the eagle will fly ’em up to God.”

  “Ain’t no bird gonna give God nothin’.” Flossie smacked her lips.

  “She will.” Fraya looked at the eagle as if they were old friends. “Dad says so. That means it’s true.”

  Fraya looked ready to cry at the thought. I realized then that not only did Dad need us to believe his stories, we needed to believe them as well. To believe in unripe stars and eagles able to do extraordinary things. What it boiled down to was a frenzied hope that there was more to life than the reality around us. Only then could we claim a destiny we did not feel cursed to.

  “I believe,” I told Fraya, taking the pencil and a slip of paper from her.

  I wish I was an eagle to fly Fraya’s prayer to God, I wrote.

  I handed Flossie the pencil. She rolled her eyes but yanked her slip of paper from Fraya anyways.

  “I pray to be a star and live in Hollywood and be more famous than Elizabeth Taylor,” Flossie said her prayer as she wrote it.

  Fraya quietly took her turn and made sure to write her prayer with her back to us.

  “Let me see.” Flossie tried to peek at what Fraya wrote. “Don’t be so secretive.”

  Fraya would not share a single word with us and swiftly folded the paper up.

  “Now they have to go into the nest,” she said as she collected mine and Flossie’s prayers.

  I tugged on Fraya’s skirt once she started to climb the tree.

  “What if the eagle mom comes back?” I asked her. “She’ll claw your eyes out, Fraya.”

  “It’s okay, Betty girl.” Fraya smiled. “I do this all the time. She lets me.”

  I reluctantly released my sister. When she reached the nest, she carefully tucked our prayers amongst the eggs.

  “The eagle’s gettin’ closer, Fraya.” I gripped onto the tree trunk as if I could shake her down. “Come on.”

  She started to leave the nest just as the eagle released a cry.

  “Watch out,” both me and Flossie yelled as the eagle flew, talons first, toward Fraya.

  Fraya had no choice but to let go of the tree and fall the rest of the way. She landed with a thud on her backside. Flossie started laughing so hard she was snorting like a pig as I helped Fraya stand up.

  “I’m fine,” Fraya said, looking up at the eagle now standing in her nest. “We can leave now. She’ll deliver our prayers where they need to go.”

  Fraya took the jar from me and had a long drink. She scrunched her face and grabbed her throat as she remarked how fiery the ’shine was.

  “This is gonna burn our insides up,” she said.

  “I don’t mind.” Flossie tried to grab the jar.

  Keeping hold of it, Fraya ran out of the pine grove. Flossie was on her heels. I stayed behind to watch the eagle step through her nest and count her eggs.

  “One, two, three,” I counted with her.

  Satisfied, the eagle took flight, unknowingly carrying one of our prayers with her. As she flew, the paper dropped. I waited for it to fall through the branches.

  “I’ve got you,” I said to the prayer, catching it just before it landed on the ground. As if it were a butterfly I was frightened would fly away, I slowly opened my hands, peeking in at the paper. Carefully reaching in, I unfolded the paper and immediately recognized Fraya’s cursive.

  I want to be free. Please set me free from him, I pray.

  “Him?” I asked. “Who’s him?”

  I remembered back to a song Fraya had written. It was about a boy who had snakes for fingers.

  Hissin’ and slitherin’ up and down my body like sin. It’s as if he ain’t eaten since the Garden of Eden.

  I slipped the paper into my pocket before running to catch up to my sisters. They were outside the pine grove, fighting over the moonshine.

  “Betty ain’t even had any yet, have ya, Betty?” Fraya handed me the jar as Flossie tried to capture it herself.

  I slapped Flossie back and took a quick drink.

  “It feels like I swallowed the sun,” I said in between coughing.

  We laughed and shared the jar the rest of the day as we swam naked in the river and danced through the hills. Fraya, who was eighteen at the time, had drunk nearly half the jar herself. I could only stomach a sip here and there, most of which I spit back out. Flossie, eleven years old and determined, worked her way into longer sips. By the time we came upon the tractor in the field, it was dark and we were as drunk as three sisters can be without falling over. Fraya walked against the tractor, running her hand along its side as she said she didn’t think the shooter was any of us.

  “I think it’s Betty.” Flossie showed all her teeth while balancing the jar in her hands.

  “Ha.” Fraya slapped her knees. “Don’t you think someone would notice an eight-year-old girl carrying a big ol’ shotgun? Besides, why would Betty shoot a gun?”

  “Maybe only ’cause she don’t have a bow and arrow.” Flossie stuck her arm up behind her head like a feather.

  “You’re Cherokee, too, stupid.” I pinched her arm.

  “But your problem is you actually look like one.” She pinched me back.

  “Ain’t a girl shootin’,” Fraya said. “It’s some damn man who ain’t got nothin’ better to do.” She laid her cheek against the tractor as if trying to inhale it. “Wolves are out this hour. They’ll smell our breasts and want to see them. We best get home.”

  With the three of us putting our drunken heads together, we started in a direction we were sure was the right one. Along the way we passed a church. It was the only building between what appeared to be never-ending fields of corn. We pressed our faces against one of the church’s windows. There was one lamp on inside, lighting up the image of Jesus on the cross.

  “The place is empty.” Flossie smiled. “Let’s go in and turn all the crosses upside down. When the preacher gets here tomorrow mornin’, he’ll think all his sins have done caught up to him.”

  Me and my sisters giggled at the thought as we pushed the front doors open. At the time, the church was never locked. That would mean the preacher didn’t trust his flock. How could they then trust him?

  “Knock, knock, are ya home, God?” Flossie asked, marching up the aisle.

  It was our first time stepping into the church. Dad believed God was in the woods more than He was ever in a building.

  “Don’t need to sit in a pew to get the word of creation,” Dad would say. “All ya have to do is to walk the hills to know there’s somethin’ bigger. A tree preaches better than any man can.”

  The church was paneled from floor to ceiling in narrow oak boards. There were ruffled brown curtains on the windows and burgundy carpet on the floor. By the lectern was a wood table on top of which sat an unlit candle.

  Fraya reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette and match. As she lit the cigarette, she kept her eyes on the candle.

  “To keep the demons away,” she said, holding the flame of the match to the candle’s wick until it started burning.

  “That little ol’ candle ain’t no angel to us,” Flossie sa
id. “It ain’t gonna put out enough light to keep the shadows away, let alone no demons.”

  She walked closer to the flame but tripped on her own feet. Falling forward, she caught herself on her knees while the jar of moonshine flew from her hand and rolled across the carpet. The remaining moonshine spilled, soaking the fibers under the table.

  “I was gonna drink that.” Flossie cursed and walked the rest of the way to the first pew on her knees. She pulled herself up on the seat.

  “Girls and women ain’t allowed in the first pew,” Fraya told her in a voice mocking the preacher’s. “Don’t you know that, Flossie dear?”

  Fraya walked over to hand her cigarette to Flossie.

  “The first pew is where I wanna sit,” Flossie said.

  “You gotta sit in the back with all the other females.” Fraya deepened her voice even more as she sashayed back to the lectern. “And ain’t no girl or woman alive should wear pants, Betty.” She pointed at my overalls. “Don’tcha know that’s a damn sin?” She caught herself on the lectern, draping herself over it. “I do believe, my dears, we have drunk too damn much.”

  “Daughters in the back row. Sons in the first,” Flossie said, frowning. “Ain’t we got mouths? Ain’t we got hands? No one thinks we’ll do much with ’em. I hate anyplace boys get to do anything they want. Hell to ’em. We got an eagle all to ourselves to fly our prayers up.” She raised her arms. “We have the power of the eagle mother and—and—well, I—I kind of forget what I was sayin’.”

  “I know what you’re sayin’.” Fraya kicked the lectern. It fell over on its side. “They take everything from us, even when we say no.”

  She unbuttoned her dress and stepped out of it, leaving her slip on.

  “I don’t feel so good,” I said just before vomiting on the nearest pew.

  “Ain’t you a gas.” Flossie made a face at me as she stood. With the cigarette held in the corner of her mouth, she wobbled toward the wall where there was a wooden cross. She turned it upside down. Then, perhaps fearing for her soul, turned it right side up again.

  “I have to go to the river,” I announced loudly. “I’m gonna vomit again. I have to go to the river so it’ll carry it away.”