The Killing Tree

by Rachel Keener

  Chapter XV

  Life coursed through me with every pulse. I ran my fingers through that black mountain dirt and held on. It was what my momma laid on when she gave birth to me, when she died. And it was what I had laid on the night before, when I first knew love. All of my hunger, sorrow, and new joy, I shared with the earth of that mountain.

  Elsa visited our tent later that day. “I did it,” she said. “I made him a rattler stew. An’ I says to him, ‘Jericho, this here is a rattler stew. An’ it might kill you. But it might save you too. I leave it to you whether you want to try.’ He set himself down and ate the whole kettle. He even said he liked it.”

  “Did it work? Has he been to church?”

  “Ain’t been a meetin’ yet. But we’ve tried it on our own. We snuck down there and he held them snakes like they was nothin’ but fuzzy pups.”

  “He’s part snake now,” I said.

  “He is. Never seen nothin’ like it in all my days. He even shook ’em to try and rile ’em up, and they never even hissed. But the best part is now he knows I ain’t the blackness in his soul.”

  She hugged me close. “You know we’re kin,” she said lightly, giving me her full smile.

  “Yes. We’ll always be friends.”

  “No,” she said, laughing. “I mean you’re my people. Your Mamma Rutha, she’s my people too.”

  “How?” I whispered, in shock.

  “Ruthie Clyde was her birth name. She still comes up in here sometimes. Often one of our men will stumble up on her in the woods. Ain’t all there in the head now, is she?”

  “No. But how is she your people?”

  “She’s from this holler. Fell in love with a valley boy, though. Moved out to his part of the mountain. That was all before my time, but folks say this whole holler was in an uproar about it. She was a beauty in her day. An’ everybody hated to see her waste it on a good-fer-nothin’ valley boy. ‘How can you leave your homeland?’ folks asked her, before she ran off to marry him. ‘It’s easier to leave my home than it is my heart,’ she cried. She loved him somethin’ fierce. Funny when you think about it.”

  “What’s funny?”

  “How you’re doin’ the same thing she did. Leavin’ your home for a boy. But Ruthie Clyde makes us kin. She was my grandmammy’s sister.”

  When Elsa left, I realized I was proud of her beauty. I was a part of that. I felt a sense of ownership in the wilderness too. It belonged to some of my ancestors. I even wondered if that made me part melungeon. Maybe there was more to me after all, than a dull paleness that stared back in the mirror.

  I was washing up in the stream when I heard a branch break. It was close. Maybe thirty feet away. Leaves rustled without any wind to blow them. Danger, danger, danger, my heart whispered.

  Trout was supposed to be loading up the truck. If I had been sure of the way and it were just up to me, we would have left long ago. But with darkness approaching, all of the woods looked the same.

  There was another movement. The sound of underbrush being pushed back. It could be a bear, I thought. Or it could be Father Heron. I hoped it was a bear. Whatever it was, as I sat and listened to its movements, I grew sure that it was tracking me down. Its path never darted to the side. It was following one clean straight line to where I sat, shaking.

  Go, go, go. That was my only thought as I felt my legs pull into a blind run. Something crashed behind me, responding to my flight. It wasn’t tracking me anymore. It was chasing me. A tree root reached out and grabbed my foot, sending me tumbling to the ground. I looked behind me. Moonlight bounced from limb to limb, lighting up pockets of the woods. A scream swelled in my throat. Every glowing pocket held a pair of black eyes. I picked myself up and ran as hard as my body could. Into branches. Through briars.

  I saw the truck in the distance.

  “Trout!” I screamed. “Trout!” It was a familiar sound. The scream of dreams, just like Mamma Rutha when her chicken was killed. Soon Trout was with me. I pulled him, dragged him, to the truck.

  “GO!” I screamed. “GO!”

  After a couple tries the truck started, and soon we were moving. I turned and looked through the rear window. My eyes searching for any trace of moonlight to show my danger. A shadow moved. A darkness low to the ground. And then another, close to the first. And though I knew better, with all my heart I knew better, I couldn’t help but think I saw them. His great hunters. Fox, Wolf, Coon, and Bear.

  “What in the hell is goin’ on?” Trout cried. “Who’s after us?”

  “Don’t know.” I didn’t know if I was being hunted or going crazy. “I just need to get off this mountain,” I sobbed. “I won’t really be free ’til I know he can’t find me.”

  “It’s awright now,” he said, grabbing my hand. “Woods can be a scary place at night.”

  “I don’t know what it was,” I said. “It was like the minute the sun set I felt danger everywhere. And it was more than a feeling. I saw things too, in the moonlight.”

  “Maybe it was a melungeon moon givin’ you a sign that danger was comin’,” he said. “Ran into Jericho today. Told me he’s seen some strange cars drivin’ up in here past couple days. Said if it was him, he’d be headin’ off the mountain soon.”

  “I’m part melungeon,” I whispered. “I’m kin to Elsa.”

  “Maybe it’s that part of you that saved us tonight.”

  We drove through the night and Crooktop hid itself in the dark. I looked in the rearview mirror and imagined I could see it, towering over our truck with its broken top. I felt the need to say goodbye. That mountain held more than my Father Heron. Mamma Rutha and Della were up there somewhere. So were my momma’s bones.

  By morning, though, my mountains had disappeared for good and everything else seemed too big. The sky went on forever. Green hills rolled as far as I could see. And the air was thick and heavy.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Middle of Tennessee. We’re further south here, there’s a little bit left to pick before the chill sets in.”

  “Where’d the mountains go?”

  “Eight hours northeast,” he said, smiling. “Big world, ain’t it?”

  Crooktop had loomed over me all my life. But eight short hours proved it was never as big as it wanted me to believe. We slowed to a stop, and I looked around at a new camp. It seemed familiar, with a river nearby, and little tent clusters dotting the fields. The last of the tomatoes were still hanging heavy on the vines. And rows of peppers were planted next to them. I’m home, I thought.

  “Well, let’s see if we can work,” he said.

  I had never imagined that we might be refused. Instead I had been preparing myself for an ugly life. The life of a mater migrant.

  “You mean they might not want us?” I asked. Suddenly, even the ugly life seemed precious. Without that work, we had no jobs. No food. And no money to get us to the ocean.

  “Well, camp’s windin’ down. Boss might not be lookin’ to hire just when he’s gettin’ ready to close the fields down.”

  We went looking for the camp boss. Trout had worked for him before, and told me that he could be harsh. “You pick your maters, and he’ll treat you good. You joke around and have an empty crate at the end of the day, he’ll make you pay.”

  We found him by the trucks, watching crates being loaded. He was a big man, with thick layers of muscle over an even thicker layer of fat. He was young too. Not much older than Trout.

  “How’d he get to be boss?”

  “Born for it. His uncle owns this farm.”

  “Do I call him Richard?” I asked, seeing the name stitched on his shirt pocket, right below “A.C. Cropping Incorporated.”

  “Never,” Trout said. “If you’re doin’ good, you call him Boss. If he’s yellin’ at you, you call him Sir. And behind his back you call him whatever you want.”

  When the trucks pulled away, Trout took me to him.

  “Hey Boss. Crooktop camp’s dried up. We was wonderin’ if you need
some help finishin’ up here.”

  “Who’s she?” he asked.

  “Mercy Price.”

  “Where y’all from?”

  “Up in the mountains. We’re on our way to Florida, need to earn some travelin’ money.”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” he said, before spitting on the ground. He crossed his arms over his chest and studied me. My eyes fell to the ground, and I tried my best to seem capable of hard work.

  “Ain’t never bossed a white girl before. I’ve hollered my head off at them Mexican girls. But this here’s a new thing for me.”

  “She’s worked in gardens all her life, Boss. She’ll work good, you got my word.”

  “Gardens.” He laughed. “This ain’t no pretty garden party. This work ain’t fitting for you. Hell, it ain’t hardly fitting for you, Trout. You need to head back up in them mountains.”

  “My hands can pick them maters as good as any Mexican girl’s,” I said.

  “But are your hands as willing to blister? Is your back as willing to hurt? Them Mexicans swim over here and beg to blister and hurt. They don’t got other options. You do. You was born for a better life than this.”

  “I was born for a life with him,” I said, looking at Trout.

  “I won’t cut you any breaks,” he said. “I don’t care how soft and pale your skin is.”

  I nodded. “We’re real grateful, Boss,” Trout said.

  “You see that corner field over there. Y’all can start there today. Show her how it goes, Trout. Make sure she don’t bang the maters up too much. Don’t stop ’til you got twenty crates.”

  “Sure thing, Boss,” Trout muttered as I followed him away.

  Already I felt like a mater migrant. I hated that white boss so much I felt my skin turn brown beneath his stare. Trout handed me a crate. And I was surprised at how big it seemed. Full of tomatoes it looked like a small box. But empty, I saw how deep and wide it really was.

  “How long will it take to fill this?” I asked.

  “Not as long as it would earlier in the summer. During the early season we have to be real careful ’bout which ones we pick. We have to leave most behind until they hit their peak. But now the season’s almost over, and what we don’t pick will rot. So pick anything that ain’t near rot. Look for mushy skin or black spots, that’s how it starts.”

  I squatted down in front of a plant and began to eye it for rot.

  “An’ watch out for them mater worms. Fuzzy green things, ’bout as long as your little finger. They give a nasty bite. Watch out for bees too. They love a rotten mater.”

  “When’s our first break?” I asked.

  He smiled at me, and I knew my question was silly. “Depends on how the day goes. Just start here, at the row next to mine.”

  I put my crate down and cupped my hand around a tomato. After two tugs, it broke loose, and I laid it in my crate. It looked so small. It would take a hundred rows, I thought, to meet our daily quota.

  “Pull it like this,” Trout called. I watched him grab the stem of the tomato, right where it connects to the vine. With a quick jerk the tomato snapped loose. He stripped an entire plant like that, before I had even spotted all the tomatoes on my plant.

  “Takes time,” he said. “You’ll figure it out.”

  Soon he was far ahead of me. I was still squatting in front of my first plant, trying to figure out which tomatoes were rotten. After squishing two in my hands, I wondered if they all were. I saw Trout get himself a new crate. Mine was only a third full.

  Hours passed. Trout brought me new crates. I didn’t know how many I had filled. Was it really only eight? I heard the boss yelling in Spanish, and was glad I couldn’t understand.

  “Trout,” I whispered as he passed by. “Do they serve lunch?”

  “Not unless you’ve met your half quota by noon.”

  “You think I will?”

  “That was an hour ago, Mercy. You only had six. When you find a mater that ain’t quite perfect, but ain’t all bad either, eat that.”

  I ate two flawed tomatoes for lunch, and began to pick up my pace so that I wouldn’t miss dinner. I cursed myself for complaining about my diner job. Carrying pork platters was nothing compared to dragging twenty crates of tomatoes to the loading dock. As the afternoon dragged on, I knew Boss was right. I was too weak for this type of work. And if the Mexicans could’ve told the truth, they would’ve said they were too. I started dreaming about baths filled with ice chips. And tried not to holler too loud when a yellowjacket stung me.

  Evening came. Trout met his quota and I was four crates behind. He bundled tomatoes from other rows in his shirt and snuck them into my crates. By nightfall, I was finished. Twenty crates, all approved by Boss.

  “Don’t look like you’ll make it back tomorrow.” Boss laughed. “Them maters beat you down.”

  I collapsed in Trout’s tent, forgetting to eat supper.

  “It won’t always be like this,” Trout whispered, rubbing my aching muscles. “We get to Florida there’ll be other work for a girl like you. There’s restaurants there, and shoppin’ malls. I hear they even have little huts that sell ice cream by the ocean. I could see you workin’ a job like that, couldn’t you?”

  Before I found the strength to answer, it was a new day. With a new quota.

  “At least twenty-two per man today. Gotta finish this field up ’fore frost comes. And there’ll be crate-and-a-half bonus pay for every crate over. And beer too for any man that hits twenty-five.”

  The migrants cheered and ran to get their crates, eager for the extra pay and beer.

  “I won’t get twenty-two,” I told Trout. “You go for the bonus, that’s good money we need. Don’t waste your maters on me.”

  Trout and some others headed for a far field, where the tomatoes were the heaviest. I stopped at the first row I came to, and started picking. It was hotter that day than before. And I didn’t worry much about whether the tomatoes were rotten or not. I passed the time thinking about a little hut by the ocean, where I could spend my days selling ice cream.

  “You’re picking rot,” Boss yelled. He picked a tomato out of my crate and threw it at me. As I wiped the rotten juice off my face, he picked up my entire crate and dumped it beside me.

  “Would you eat that?” he yelled. “Here, take a bite of this one! You think that’s fit for eating?” He shoved a black tomato in my face. I turned my head away and forced myself to hold back my tears. “Don’t put nothing rotten in that crate or I’ll make you eat it next time.”

  I sat down on the ground and began sorting the dumped tomatoes.

  “It’s the skin,” a girl whispered to me. I could see her staring at me through the leaves, from the other side of my row.

  “Pinch the skin to see if it gives. If it sinks in deep and doesn’t press back at all, it’s too ripe. You want the skin to push back some.”

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  “Here,” she said, pushing several tomatoes on the ground over to me. “Boss don’t want you to make your quota. He likes it when new girls don’t.”

  I started picking again, determined to meet my quota. I no longer thought about my body. Or the bees. I was too busy worrying over Boss. I dragged crate after crate to the docks. All full of pinched tomatoes. And when I collapsed in Trout’s tent that night, I couldn’t help but wonder at how the world was still the same. The mountains might have disappeared. But enemies hadn’t. Neither had fear.

  Chapter XVI

  The days passed slowly, like my rows of tomatoes. My body learned to struggle through the work. And my heart learned how to love Trout freely. There was no need to be careful anymore. He kissed me hard in the middle of the tentworld. And at night he led me to the fields and laid me down among the rows. Our love was as ripe as the harvest.

  “It’s always gonna be like this,” Trout whispered one night. The smell of tomatoes curled around us, and I wished that was all there was. No white bosses. No quotas.

  “I mean
, you won’t work like this always,” he said. “I’ll do better by you in Florida. But the rest of it, the holdin’ you in my arms and the havin’ you as my own, none of that’s gonna change.”

  “That’s all I want,” I whispered. “If I can have that, I’ll pick these maters forever.”

  “Look there,” he said, pointing to the full moon. “That was made for people like you.”

  “I can’t see nothing in it. Mamma Rutha could’ve.”

  “C’mon,” he said, smiling. “Just try.”

  I laid back on the dirt, my face turned up to the sky, and stared hard into the moon. I noticed for the first time the shades of gray swirling in with the light. And how even those dark spots glowed.

  “I see us by the ocean,” I whispered. “And when we kiss we can taste the salt in the air. Nobody knows that you’re a mater migrant. Or that I’m the deacon’s granddaughter. Nobody cares that we’re in love.”

  “Any babies in that moon?” He laughed.

  I laughed too.

  “It’s a big moon, Mercy. Too big for just us,” he teased.

  “Don’t know about babies, but right there,” I said, pointing to the moon, “that dark spot there, you see it? That’s you catching a big ocean fish and making up some story about how you set its belly on fire.”

  Sometimes we stayed in the rows until we fell asleep, like Adam and Eve lost in the garden. But we found happiness back in the tentworld too. It was a place where everyone tried to make up for hard days by being as jolly as possible. Most of the migrants understood some English, and I was quickly learning the most necessary Spanish phrases. Like, Maldiga el diablo blanco al infierno for “Damn the White Devil to hell.” White Devil, that’s what we called Boss.

  Many of the migrants had known Trout for years. Trout would sit and talk with them about old times—the fields they used to work, the bosses they loved or hated. I listened and learned more of his secrets. Like how he cried the first time he left the mountains. He was a young boy frightened to learn that his world didn’t go on forever. Trucha que llora, they called him, the Weeping Trout. I learned about his first love too, Marta. She made you weep again, Trucha, the migrants teased. He had been sixteen when he loved her. Neither one understood the other’s language. They spent hours sitting by each other, smiling and staring. When her family went back to Mexico and took her with them, Trout’s heart was broken.