Absalom's Daughters

by Suzanne Feldman

  “Porterville?” said Slick. “You have to ask my uncle about that.”

  “Haven’t you heard of it?” said Cassie.

  “I heard of it. He knows where it is.” Slick shut the hood and carefully rolled down his sleeves. “I know where Virginia is,” he said, “an’ I can tell you, this heap might git you to Alabama, but Virginia a long way.”

  “Hey,” shouted Judith from the driver’s seat. “That all we gotta do? Put gas innit?”

  Slick gave Cassie the gas can. “You put that in the back and fill it when you get to Newcome.” He pointed down the road, away from the church. “They gotta gas station there, but only for white folks.”

  “You think they gotta map in Newcome? Our map so old, the roads done worn off.”

  Slick went over to the convertible, where Ovid Beale had pulled a crisp new map out of the glove compartment. Slick helped him spread it out on the convertible’s silky red trunk. Cassie pressed herself close to Ovid Beale before Judith could climb out of the shuddering junk car and gallop over.

  “Slick says you know where Porterville is.”

  “Shore I know,” said Ovid Beale. “Who tol’ you ’bout it?”

  “You ever hear of Beanie Simms?”

  Judith was there, pushing the hair out of her eyes, hands on the map.

  Slick tapped an unmarked point near the leftmost edge of the map. “We here,” he said. “This the railroad you bin followin’.” The railroad showed as a hatched line across the green background of the state of Mississippi. The road from Heron-Neck beside it was marked in black and as thin as mending thread. The state roads and highways cut wide paths in reds and blues.

  “Newcome down here.” Ovid Beale pointed out a dot no bigger than a speck of pepper. “Two hours away.” He traced the length of the road from Newcome to the next intersection. Two thready black lines ran together; the one paralleling the tracks, the other crossing them. The road crossing the tracks was marked STATE HIGHWAY 18. “This here crossroads is Porterville.”

  “Porterville?” said Cassie in amazement. So close?

  “A good twenty miles from Newcome, and you got to be there by sundown.” Ovid Beale straightened and held Cassie by the wrist, looking right into her face. “I don’t want you gals to think we inhospitable, but you need to be well past Newcome by afternoon so you can git to Porterville by night.”

  “What’s in Porterville?” said Judith.

  “Colored folk,” said Ovid Beale. “It ain’t safe campin’ by the tracks after dark. Y’hear me, lil white gal? An’ telling folks this lil colored gal is you sister is jus’ plain stupid. Get you both wuss’n kilt. Y’unnerstand that?”

  Judith looked like the idea had never crossed her mind. “Yessuh.”

  “When you git to Porterville,” said Ovid Beale, “you ask for Mistah Johnson Mallard. He one of my uncles. You tell him Ovid Beale sent you, and he give you a place to stay.”

  Behind Ovid Beale, more and more people were arriving at the church. Most were wearing black and red. The women had red head-wraps, and the men wore red sashes across black suits. One of the women made her way over to the cars with a basket on one arm.

  “You gettin’ that shirt dirty?” she said to Slick. “That the only white shirt you got.”

  “I ain’t,” he said and showed her the sleeves, which were pristine.

  “Service ’bout to start,” said the woman. Cassie thought she was probably Slick’s wife. The woman turned to Cassie and gave her the basket. It was heavy and smelled of ham and fresh bread. “Don’t want you to consider us inhospitable, but you cain’t stay. This a private service.”

  “Yessum,” said Cassie. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Judith said.

  Ovid Beale folded up the map and handed it to Judith. “Don’t dawdle now,” he said and went to untie the mule from the tree.

  They got into the car, Judith in the driver’s seat. She put the car in gear, ready to roar out of town as soon as the mule was out of her path. The junk car belched a cloud of blue smoke right into the mule’s face. Cassie expected the mule to startle or balk; instead, it turned its head toward them and curled its lips across its teeth. Judith twisted in her seat to watch Ovid Beale lead it toward the church.

  “What’s the matter?” said Cassie. “We got to go.”

  Judith swung around in the seat. “Din’t you hear that?” Judith gunned the engine, and the car jerked into motion.

  “Did he say somethin’?” said Cassie.

  “You did too hear it.”

  “Mister Beale?”

  “The mule!”

  Cassie glanced back at Ovid Beale and the mule. The rest of the street was empty, and the tall, leafless trees framed the houses in shades of brown and gray, like an old-time photo.

  “You din’t hear it,” said Judith.

  “What din’t I hear?”

  “The mule.” Judith kept her hands on the wheel and her eyes on the road, her mouth fixed. “Said, ‘Hep me, lil white gal. Hep me!’”

  Cassie laughed. “You outta your mind.” She looked back once more at the trees and rough houses just in time to see Ovid Beale lead the resisting mule up the steps of the church and in through the front door.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  By midafternoon they found the city limits sign for Newcome. The sign was pocked with bullet holes.

  TOWN OF NEWCOME

  POP. 212

  “Even Heron-Neck had more folks than that,” said Judith.

  Newcome was big enough to have a general store with a pair of gas pumps. On the near side of the tracks were the same run-down houses, loose chickens, and tied-up dogs as in Heron-Neck. On the far side of the tracks, where the general store was, grand brick houses sheltered under tall oaks and maples.

  The general store was called Ellie’s. Judith pulled into the rutted dirt lot in front of it, alongside two other cars and a wagon with a mule. The wagon driver was a colored man, who looked at the two of them out of the corner of his eye. One of the cars was an aging pickup truck with bales of straw stuffed into the back. The other was older even than the junk car and had weeds growing under it.

  Judith surveyed the cars and then the store. “You think I should go in?”

  “I ain’t,” said Cassie. “So it’s got to be you.”

  “Think I should take Big Red in with me?”

  “What?”

  “The gun.”

  “Lord Jesus, Judith, you want them to think you’re robbin’ ’em?”

  “I ain’t got money, so I guess I’m gonna be doing jus’ that.”

  “You ain’t got no money?”

  “Where would I git enny money?” said Judith.

  The colored man on the wagon was staring right at them. Cassie leaned over her knees so he couldn’t see what she was doing and pushed off one shoe. The damp dollar bills had traveled in a wad toward her toe. She peeled off two. “Here,” she whispered and pushed the money at Judith from under the dashboard, out of sight.

  “You got money in yo’ shoes?”

  “Jus’ get the gas.”

  “Lucky we ain’t jumped on no freight cars.”

  “And get another map.”

  “But we gotta map.”

  “You tell ’em you want a map that go north an’ east. Alabama’s east of here and Tennessee’s north.”

  “I ain’t gonna member. Write ’em for me.”

  Cassie took a stub of pencil from the glove compartment and wrote on a scrap of paper bag:

  Alabama

  Tennessee

  Judith took the scrap of paper and the empty gas can and went into the store. As soon as she was out of sight, the man got down off the mule wagon, sauntered over to the car, and leaned on the door.

  “Aftuhnoon, miss,” he said.

  Cassie nodded curtly without looking at him, like Grandmother would’ve done.

  “Where y’all from?” he said.

  “Yonder a ways.”

  “I
been all round Mississippi. Likely I know your town. Where y’all from?”

  He made her uncomfortable. “You know Hilltop?” Cassie said.

  “Hill folk don’t come down here too often.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Cain’t say I ever seen ’em with white folk, neither.”

  “Prob’ly not.”

  He studied her and leaned in closer. “If you hill people, I’m king o’ de niggahs.”

  Cassie glanced at the front of the store. There was no sign of Judith or anyone else. She thought of the horse pistol under the driver’s seat but couldn’t see how she could lean over, grab it, get the hammer cocked, and point it at him in one smooth move.

  So she pointed at his mule. “Where you git your mule from?”

  “Ain’t my mule.”

  “Always been a mule?” said Cassie.

  “What the hell you talkin’ ’bout, girl?”

  She could remember the gist of what Ovid Beale said on the way to Hilltop, but not the details, which had been ridiculous at the time, but now felt too important to be left out. “You never know ’bout mules,” said Cassie. “Half of ’em use to be colored folk.”

  The man didn’t say anything, but he moved back a bit.

  “An’ your mule got a certain—a certain ’pearance.”

  “What kinda ’pearance you talkin’ ’bout?”

  “He got plans,” said Cassie, trying to sound careless but informed, like Judith when she lied. “Eatin’, sleepin’, and gettin’ out. That mule useter be a man, jus’ like yourself.” She paused for effect, because this would be where Judith would pause. She gave the man a look right in his eye, because that was what Ovid Beale would have done. “He musta said the wrong thing to somebody sometime, ’cause now jus’ look at ’im.”

  “Girl,” said the man. “You crazy as shit.” He walked away, slow, like he really wanted to run, and climbed back onto the wagon. He sat with the reins in both hands, watching the front of the store until a white man came out and motioned him to drive around the back.

  Judith came out not long afterward with a full gas can, maps under her arm, and a fist full of beef jerky. She climbed into the driver’s seat, handed the jerky and the maps to Cassie. One was ALABAMA AND SOUTHERN GEORGIA. The other was TENNESSEE AND EASTERN MISSISSIPPI. To Cassie’s surprise, there was a calendar, too. An OXYDOL one, just like at home. Judith had already folded it open to February.

  Judith started the car. “What that ol’ man want with you?”

  “We jus’ talkin’ ’bout his mule,” Cassie said.

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon, they took a break from driving and sat on the cold ground to eat two of the half-dozen ham sandwiches in the basket. Cassie spread out all three maps—two from the gas station and one from Slick. She could see all of Alabama and most of northern Georgia, as well as the southern edge of Tennessee riding in the upper margins. Virginia was nowhere in sight.

  “How far we come already?” said Judith. She was crossing out days on the calendar as though she knew the date. She had made x’s all through the month of January and halfway through February. Cassie wasn’t sure of the date exactly, but if Judith was right, they had about four weeks to get through all these states and more that they couldn’t see yet.

  “Here’s Newcome.” Cassie showed her.

  “Where them Hilltop folk?”

  “They ain’t marked. But these the hills. Heron-Neck over here someplace.” She tapped her finger on the ground, off the map, to the west.

  “Well,” said Judith, “then I guess we come a fair piece.”

  Cassie placed her hands side by side by side and counted four hands between where they were and the Mississippi and Alabama border.

  Judith put the calendar aside, chewing jerky. “You think there somethin’ special where Mississippi ends and Al’bama starts? Like a golden gate? Or a soldier in a little red house?”

  “I think that’d be nice,” said Cassie.

  “I hope there is,” said Judith. She got up and wiped her hands. “Let’s get goin’, or we’ll never git to Porterville by dark.”

  The farther they got from the hills, the smoother the road became. With the winter sun low behind them, the junk car made good speed. Soon they were going fast enough for the wind to flutter their clothes and lift Judith’s limp hair. The car was still noisy, but there was no more blue smoke. It seemed like the junk car had cleared its throat and could breathe again.

  Judith drove as they passed through the slight hills of the countryside. As it got later, the air became chilly but not unbearable.

  “How close’re we to Porterville?” Judith asked about an hour before dark.

  “Pretty close.” Cassie was fairly sure she knew where they were. The railroad was on their right like a dependable river. Ahead State Highway 18 would cross the tracks and the road, and there would be Porterville. Cassie wasn’t sure what she would say to Judith when they got there or what exactly she would do, but Judith had a car that ran and maps to find her way. And if there was an inheritance, it would be all hers.

  “You know what I’d surely like,” said Judith.

  “What?”

  “A little reddio music.” She pointed at a dirty, dented plastic box on the floor under the dashboard. “Get it up here. Turn it on. See if we kin git a station.”

  The radio was a boxy thing under layers of greasy black fingerprints and of dirt from the footwell. Cassie had thought it was some part of the car that had fallen out under the dash. It slid back and forth on a long cord. As long as it lay there and the car still ran, Cassie had figured leave well enough alone. She squeezed down over her own knees and reached for the boxy thing gingerly, a banged-up version of a two-dollar model she’d seen at Tabitha Bromley’s estate sale. She pulled herself and the radio out from under the dash, holding it with her fingertips. It was just as filthy as it could be. Even the little bit of glass covering the dial was filthy.

  “Turn it on!” said Judith. “I knows it works.”

  There were two knobs. Cassie turned one all the way to the right. Static roared out of the radio. She yelped in surprise, and Judith laughed so hard the car swerved on the road. Cassie turned the other knob. There were voices talking, then singing, then static, then something like gospel, then more static.

  Judith said, “See if you kin find New York City!”

  Cassie turned the knob the other way, slower.

  … and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred …

  “If it ain’t Sunday, we ain’t gotta lissen to the preacher,” said Judith. “Keep goin’.”

  In the beginning was the Word …

  “Is it Sunday?” said Judith. “Mebbe we should check the calendar.”

  “I don’t think it is.”

  “Then keep lookin’.”

  Today, President Eisenhower told the press that …

  Cassie turned the knob once more. There was music, thin and sweet.

  “That Doris Day,” said Judith. She sang along full-throated but stopped in the middle. “Oh, I hate this song. You like this song?”

  “I never heard it before,” said Cassie. “Sounds like she singin’ inna tin can.”

  “Her voice all right,” said Judith, “but that song. La la laaaah, lala.” She let her tongue loll out on each la.

  Doris Day faded into an announcer’s voice and more music. Judith listened intently to the first few notes, then crooned along. It was a song about someone’s papa, how good and gentle and lovable he was.

  Cassie snorted. “He don’t sound nuthin’ like your papa.”

  “No, he don’t,” said Judith. “Now here’s how the song go about your papa.”

  Oh, your pa-pa, he run out on your mama

  Oh, your pa-pa, he ran out on mine tooooo

  No one could be so turr-i-ble

  Lyin’ an’ incur-gi-ble

  He a skirt-chasi
n’, adulteratin’ white trash mannnn!

  They laughed so hard, Judith had to steer with one hand while she wiped her eyes. “You think we could git that on the reddio?”

  “It don’t even rhyme,” said Cassie, and they started laughing again.

  Another song came through the static, and Judith reached over to turn it way up. “I know this one! Jack played it!”

  She started to sing along but stopped again. “This ain’t right. These ain’t the same guys.”

  The voices were smooth, like an ironed sheet. “They white,” Cassie said, so suddenly she surprised herself.

  “They white?” Judith fixed her eyes on the radio as though she could tell more by looking at it. “Singin’ a black song?” She belted out the chorus the way they’d heard it upstairs at the Wivells’.

  “They on the reddio,” said Cassie. “They must be doin’ somethin’ right.”

  “I wonder if Jack know ennythin’ about this.” Judith reached over and switched off the noise.

  * * *

  It was dark by the time the railroad tracks turned slightly north and their road met a paved two-lane road marked MISSISSIPPI STATE HIGHWAY 18.

  Without even a sliver of a moon, the two of them looked around for Porterville.

  They looked for lights or houses or even someone’s back fence. There were tracks on the right and open pastures on the left. The one thing that made the intersection remarkable was a billboard, and it was too dark to see what it was for.

  “Town’s s’posed to be right here,” said Judith.

  It was too dark to check the map, but Cassie had been checking all afternoon. “Right here,” she said.

  “Mistah Ovid Beale couldn’t bin lyin’ to us ’cause he showed this place on the map. What’s it called again?”

  “Porterville. You think we missed it?”

  “We din’t miss nuthin’,” said Judith. She peered into the night. “Kin you hide a whole town?”

  “Colored folks maybe want to keep out of sight of the road.”

  “If that the case, whyn’t ennybody say ennythin’?”

  Maybe the town would become obvious in the daylight, but Cassie had a terrible feeling in her stomach. She pointed at the billboard. “See if we can get the car back behind there. Just stay here for the night.”