“Woman, I don’t want no part of an afterlife where there’ll be coloreds.” He pulled the bathrobe tighter and reached his face toward the horse. Joella took a step back and whispered to Justy, “Come on.”
The horse stamped her foot, flicked her tail and nuzzled Gaines under the chin. He smiled and Justy watched how his wrinkles changed their direction. She wasn’t sure she’d seen him smile before. Joella turned the magazine to see the cover better, and she opened her mouth and then closed it. Gaines set the beer bottle on the ground and turned his back to Justy and Joella.
“We’re all Jehovah’s children,” Joella said. She placed a light hand on Justy’s shoulder and pulled her away from Gaines and the horse. He didn’t seem to hear Joella as he continued to nuzzle with the horse. Justy followed Joella and checked her senses for Jake. He’d left the pictures in the barn and gone to the backcountry of the ranch with his chain saw. She felt him step away from a Douglas fir, felt the chain saw hum in his barely Indian hands as he watched the tree fall to the ground, a deep ripping sound filling Jake’s afternoon, audible even over the sound of the saw. Joella started the car and again opened her mouth, but her words seemed to fail her and she remained quiet. Justy felt sorry for Joella, who was just beginning to understand that sometimes there are things in life that just leave a person without words. This, she wanted to tell Joella, was where Justy lived.
The second-to-last day of school arrived, and in the afternoon, Ochre and Justy sat on the swings. Jeff Sloan was seven today and his mom was inside, leading the kids in a dancing contest. Ochre and Justy flew away from the school grounds, and she imagined that he led her to the river, where they watched water skippers flit across the water’s calm surface. Then Justy imagined taking him to the barn and showing him the pictures and telling him the stories she made up about them.
A vehicle approached and Justy closed her eyes against the noise. She leaned backward and let her hair hang down. The footsteps she sensed were Jake’s, and she opened her eyes to see his upside-down figure approaching. She sat up and stopped swinging, then twisted to face him. Ochre also came to a stop.
“Get your things,” Jake said. He looked around the playground and walked closer. He grabbed the chains, and Justy watched his hands to make sure they didn’t express any of the jitters dancing inside him. She jerked with his movements. He looked at Ochre and said, “That’s quite the braid you got there.”
Ochre flashed Jake a peace sign. Jake shook his head. “Your mama that one that thinks she’s an Indian?”
Ochre shrugged and pushed off again, swinging away from Jake. “Tell her I said being an Indian only means trouble,” Jake said.
Ochre watched Jake’s face while he continued swinging. Jake smiled at Justy and said, “Let’s go, girl.” He released the swing and she swung away from him and then back. He caught the chains again and said, “Let’s hit it.”
Justy jumped off and watched the swing right itself before walking to the wooden bench to get her books. Jake moved to the edge of the playground and called back to Ochre, “See you, little Indian.” Ochre waved and flashed his broad smile at Justy. She waved back and followed Jake.
As they drove away from the school, Jake said, “This could be a real shitty day, but some things have changed. I’ve made a decision.” He coasted to a stop on the street along the Sequoia Market, checked both ways for traffic, then headed past the post office and the other town buildings. In the empty space between the Redwood Diner and the Cedar Diner, Justy could make out Ochre’s small form, still flying high on the swings.
“Your mother sent me after you since there was a birthday party,” Jake said.
Justy knew Dale kept track of each day she shouldn’t be in the classroom, but this was the first time she had gone to the trouble to make sure Justy was somewhere else. Justy wondered if Dale knew she spent her holiday time with Ochre.
“I was coming into town to pick up some stuff,” Jake said. He pointed with his thumb to the bed of the truck. Justy nodded, knowing that Dale always wanted one of the kids with him whenever Jake came into town. Still, he pulled onto the dirt shoulder at Hilltop that overlooked the yawning river canyon. Justy inhaled sharply as she looked out the Willys’s window, thinking about Dale and the flood.
“You can come in,” Jake said, and she climbed out after him. Lefty’s battered green Ford and two other trucks were parked in front. She followed Jake into the dark room and Helen called hello. The three men at the bar said or nodded their greetings. Lefty got off his stool and bowed to Justy, taking off an imaginary hat. He winked at her and she smiled at him, then climbed onto a stool next to where Jake stood.
“What it’ll be, Colby?” Helen asked. She smiled around her cigarette at Justy, while Jake remained standing.
“Just one quick shot, please, Señora.”
Justy felt confused by Jake’s good mood. Underneath the smiles, something was itching to get to the surface. Helen poured him a whiskey and he drank it down and then laid money on the counter.
“How’s that coast job?” Lefty asked from the far end of the bar.
“Didn’t you hear?” Jake said and smirked. “Gaines has some legal problems, something about a timber harvest plan he didn’t file. Damn environmentalists.”
Justy didn’t understand how Jake could act so happy after only one month of falling work. She closed her eyes and realized it had something to do with the stuff in the back of the truck. When she opened her eyes, the Hamm’s beer sign caught her gaze. Again she watched the water fall and fall, and she hoped that for all her dreaming, the Eel would actually take her someplace bigger and not leave her here.
***
They drove in silence and Justy waited for glimpses of the Eel. Jake tumbled figures in his head, long lists of numbers that added up to very little. The truck hit the dirt road and they rolled up to the tired barn.
“Your mother’s out knocking on doors with Joella again,” Jake said as he climbed out. Dale spent more and more time with the Witnesses, maybe tipping the balance toward Jehovah and away from Jake. But, Jake was wrong today, because Dale was with Mamie Harris, the can of pennies in her lap. Justy followed him into the barn, and the smell of the musty hay and decaying leather hit her like it did every time. She stopped just inside the door, letting her eyes adjust. Jake walked farther into the dark and picked up something. As he walked past Justy, she saw that it was a bag of potting soil.
She moved over to the pictures. Cobwebs and dust still layered over them, leaving no trace of any of her visits. She leaned forward and reexamined the infant pictures of Jake. He wore a fancy baby suit and his black hair was perfectly combed, parted on one side. The woman named Lila held him, her once-straight hair permed and frizzing. Justy touched the picture of Lila and her sisters outside the shack. North Arkansas, Kyle had said.
“What are you looking at?” Jake stood in the doorway, his face in shadow. Justy stepped back and studied the tips of her scuffed tennis shoes. He walked close and peered at the pictures. “That one’s your granma.” Jake pointed to the picture Justy had been studying. He squinted and said, “They look like a bunch of squaws, don’t they?”
Justy looked back and forth between the shack picture and the one of Lila and Jake. There were differences, but Lila had the same eyes, the same careful smile, in both pictures.
“She’s only half Indian, but she sure looks full there.” Jake sat on an old chest opposite the photos. He rested his elbows on his knees and put his chin in his hands. “She was a good woman.” He looked out the barn door to the decrepit corrals. “A hard life, though, beginning to end,” he said.
Justy stood in the shadows and held her breath, perched at the exact point where Kyle had started telling stories.
“She saw her dad shot when she was five.” Jake closed his eyes. “My granddad was a moonshiner, shot by federal revenuers. The sons of bitches.”
&
nbsp; Justy stood absolutely still and time creaked by. Jake remained lost somewhere in his memories.
“She had a nervous breakdown after that. After seeing him killed,” Jake finally said. He blinked and stood. “Some people can’t take the hard stuff.” He placed a light hand on Justy’s head, reaching across some great distance to bring himself to the present. He walked to the pictures and knelt before them. With his hand, he flattened out himself, Lila and Kyle, dust clinging to his fingers. He stared into the pictures for a long minute. Justy wished she could have said something to comfort him, but she wondered, even if she could talk, what words could possibly make Jake feel better about Lila and her dead father.
Jake dropped his hand and said, “Let’s get going.” Then he walked to the back of the barn. Justy stared at Lila and her sisters outside the shack and felt as if part of her had been blown open by what Jake had just told her. It had cut short her idea of Lila having a proud mother and father watching the picture being taken. She studied Lila’s face and saw that the look on her grandmother’s face maybe wasn’t determination but sadness.
Jake walked by with another bag of soil. Justy followed him to the bed of the truck and she saw two trays full of seedlings. Each stood about six inches tall, with leaves like the ones on the T-shirt Harris wore on the day of the tree falling.
“You ride back here and make sure the plants stay upright,” Jake said. Justy climbed into the bed and Jake raised the tailgate. She sat on the wheel well, her legs on the outside of the trays. Jake guided the truck up the hill, away from the barn, following faint tracks to a grassy clearing. He stopped at the far edge, where trees ringed most of the area. Old tires were evenly placed in a semicircle, right at the point where the trees’ canopies stopped and the grass began. By each tire a small mound of dirt waited, and by one tire Justy saw a roll of chicken wire, a shovel and some black plastic bags.
Jake walked to the back of the truck and winked at Justy. She sensed that under his light mood, the memory cloud of his mother brewed. He helped Justy down and she closed her eyes, hearing the creek back in the trees gurgle. Too many of Jake’s stories ended in violence.
“Come on, Justy. You can help me.” He tapped the side of a tray of plants and tilted his head. She walked behind him to the first tire. A fresh hole lined with the black plastic waited. Jake set the plants down gently and picked up a shovel. He scooped dirt from the pile next to the tire and poured it in. The dirt cascaded against the plastic with a sound like water. He laid the shovel down, pulled his knife from his pocket and slit open a bag of potting soil. He walked to the truck and came back with a third bag. Justy watched him grab a handful of both the potting soil and the third soil and dump them into the hole—three colors of brown.
“As I understand it, this stuff it’s the trick.” He indicated the third bag. “It’s worm castings, which is basically worm shit.”
He created a hole in the dirt mixture, then took one of the plants from the tray. He squeezed the sides of the black plastic container and then grasped the seedling at its base. Turning the plant upside down, he pulled it out. It slid easily from the container, its pale roots dangling. Jake held it in place with one hand and filled in the hole with his other. Justy watched his barely brown hand press down the dark soil, making sure the plant could stand on its own. He stood, wiped his hands and smiled. “One down.” He wiped his forehead, his fingers traced with dirt. “You see, Justy, the thing about these plants is that they’re all female.”
Justy looked at the seedlings and tried to see how he could tell their gender.
“You only want the females,” he said, “’cause when the males are around, the plants get to doing their business. If we keep these girls by themselves, they get all pissed off and become more potent.” Jake walked away and Justy thought about Dale running away in the middle of the night, because Jake had been drinking too much and for too long.
Jake turned and said, “And that’s when we make some money.” He shrugged and said, “Leastwise, that’s what I been told.” He grinned and walked the rest of the way to the next tire, then held out the tray. “What I want you to do is plant these babies. I’ll keep getting the holes ready and you can set the plants in. You were watching what I was doing?”
Justy nodded.
“I knew you would be.” He set down the tray and went back to the two bags of different soils. He prepared the hole and stood back. Justy walked to him and picked up one of the containers and squeezed the sides, crinkling the plastic. She turned it upside down as he’d done, holding the plant’s base and gently pulling. She did it all the same way he’d done it, though slower, more carefully.
“These are our future, girl,” he said and picked up the soils and shovel and moved to the next tire. Justy sat on her heels and looked at the plant. Its delicate leaves drooped a little. She wondered precisely what moonshining was and how this was different. Town talk about CAMP and guns ran through her thoughts, flooding over the face of Lila, standing outside a shack, her father dead since she was five.
***
They finished planting, then Jake went to the truck and pulled out a bucket. He took it to the creek and brought water to each plant, carefully pouring the liquid into the soft soil. The sun eased toward the ocean, and the shadows lengthened as he carried the water. Justy watched, her hands deep in the upturned soil in front of her. Across the creek, the soil was the distinctive red and different trees and plants grew in those other minerals.
Jake arched his back, stretching. Justy thought of the way certain people talked about pot growers, how it was said they were lazy and good-for-nothing. Jake came to stand next to Justy and they looked at the plants, working their roots into the soil, trying to adjust.
“Tomorrow I’ll come put the chicken wire around them so the deer won’t get them,” Jake said. Justy wondered what would happen if the deer ate the plants. Would the animals act goofy like Dale said people were when they did pot? Maybe the plants were too little and had to grow more to become the valuable things Harris and his kind wanted. People in the cities, men back from Vietnam, people who were radicals, Dale said. Justy wondered whether Caleb and Sky had seen their father plant the dope everyone said he grew. Her gaze went back to the seedlings. They didn’t look like money, but neither did the trees that Jake and Kyle fell or the mountain with its nickel.
“A one-man reservation,” Jake said. If somehow, the mine was stopped, Jake wanted to be ready to stake a claim.
They climbed into the truck and started the slow descent down the steep road, then past the barn. Jake gripped the steering wheel and flashed himself a smile in the rearview mirror. He looked back to the road, navigating the ruts.
***
When they got to the house, Justy walked to Kyle’s cabin. She wanted him to tell her a story that would take her away from the secret thing she and Jake had just done. Kyle sat on the plank, guitar in his arms, playing a song with his eyes closed. Justy listened to him sing about the West Texas town and the cowboy who fell in love with Felina, a young Mexican maiden. Kyle’s fingers danced over the strings, spinning out the story-song. The cowboy ended up dying, and Justy sighed at another death.
Kyle finished, opened his eyes and smiled at her.
“Come here, string bean.” He patted the plank and she walked to him. He placed the guitar in her arms and positioned her hands on the strings. She felt too small, but he showed her how to hold the guitar comfortably. He taught her two chords, and then took the guitar back and sang “Cool Water,” a song about a man and his mule in the desert, dying of thirst and having to watch out for the Devil. Kyle’s croon filled the air and Justy shivered. It seemed like Satan was everywhere she turned.
Kyle tuned the guitar differently and placed a glass tube on the ring finger of his left hand. Justy studied his face to see if he knew anything about Jake’s new plan. Kyle bent the notes of the guitar like the music was waves of fee
ling. Justy loved it when he used the slide; it made her feel less alone because the melody reached inside and made her imagine she was in the Eel.
***
School ended the next day. A growing sadness filled Justy as the day progressed, and she stayed close to Ochre. The dry air of summer hovered close. She hoped Sunshine might take Ochre to Carver’s Hole sometime in the next three months, but she knew it wasn’t likely since the Ravens already lived on the Eel.
She and Ochre flew on the swings again during the last recess, and she tried to find a way to thank him. She wanted to tell him how she loved walking next to him when they went to the sixth-grade classroom, and that she always tried to match her stride to his. Justy wanted to know if his friendship would last over the summer. The motion of the swing comforted her as she tried to free even one word.
The sting of losing Ochre grew because she knew Dale would never let her visit him, not while he lived in the tipi with Sunshine and Nolan, not while his hair grew long and he wasn’t a Witness. Dale thought they were pagans. But Justy liked that they lived close to the land and seemed to love one another cleanly. Besides, Jake and Justy had planted the illegal plants and she felt corrupted already.
But even if Justy did talk, Dale wouldn’t understand. And Justy didn’t think there were the right words to be able to explain this to Ochre.
The final bell rang, and Justy and Ochre stopped swinging. Sunshine appeared from around the building and walked toward them. She knelt and reached out a hand to Justy and Ochre. She held each of their wrists in her slender fingers. The deep red scarf around her head revealed the curve of her skull and highlighted the bones of her temples. She remained quiet and looked’ back and forth between the two of them, intently, directly, and Justy felt that somehow it was enough.
***
Come Monday, Dale told Jake she’d be out in service with Mamie Harris. He and Kyle sat on the front porch, watching the day dawn. The woodpile was almost gone, so the two of them had a clear view of the pond. Three turtles crawled out of the water while Jake and Kyle talked over what to do. Kyle thought maybe they should head north and look for work at the Scotia mill. Jake wasn’t sure. He thought they should wait for the call from Gaines, telling them the permits were good and the work could start again.
By Way of Water Page 19