Precious Bones

by Mika Ashley-Hollinger

  That night when Nolay came home, she met him at the door. She placed both hands on her hips and said, “The chickens or me.”

  “Now, Honey Girl, you know how durn important a chicken is. I cain’t just get rid of ’em like that.”

  “Then share them around with our neighbors. Are you saying that a chicken is more important than me?”

  Nolay had raised an eyebrow as if to ponder her question. He wrapped both hands around her waist and said, “Honey Girl, a chicken couldn’t measure up to a clippin’ off your fingernail.”

  He turned to me. “Bones, in the morning you pick out ten of your favorite hens and that danged rooster that’s twice the size of all the others. Lock ’em up on the back porch. I got me an idea. Tomorrow I’m goin’ vistin’.” The next day he came home and informed us, “This Saturday we’re going to the beach, and our neighbors are coming out here for a chicken hunt.”

  Saturday morning we locked up the chosen chickens. Mama packed us a lunch that could have fed a Boy Scout troop, and off we went. When we returned there was nothing left of the chickens but a few feathers. Nolay surveyed the yard, put his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels and said, “Well, am I right or am I right?”

  From that day on, Ikibob was lord and master of our yard. He not only bossed his hens around but the dogs and us as well.

  That evening, by the time me and Nolay reached the coop, Ikibob already had his brood put up for the night; all we had to do was close the door to the chicken house.

  Pearl and Harry shared a pen together next to the henhouse. Mama flat refused to let the two of them sleep in the house at night. Pearl was stretched out in her favorite hole and Harry was curled up right underneath her plump belly.

  Nolay shook his head. “Look at them two. I swear that pig thinks that goat is her baby. Or maybe the goat thinks the pig is his mama. Any way you look at it, them two is the best of friends.”

  After we secured the animals, Nolay said, “Let’s walk the boundaries.” This was something we tried to do every week or so, walk the edges of our clearing and have the dogs mark their territory. Their scent, along with our human tracks, was a silent message to wild animals to keep out.

  Like an inky black umbrella, the night slowly closed in around us. The sky filled with stars that twinkled and dripped down to the edge of Florida’s flat horizon.

  “Look up there, Nolay,” I said, “God’s angels are busy spilling out bushel baskets of stars. Did you know that every star is someone’s miracle?”

  “How you figure that?”

  “Mr. Speed told me. He said that miracles happen around us every day; we just have to look for ’em. A miracle is a special gift from God. Every time there’s a miracle, he puts a little piece of a star in a jar, and when they add up big enough, you get your very own star.”

  I let that information sink in and then continued. “My miracle today was a baby gopher. I found it turned upside down in a puddle; it was craning its little neck up above the water to keep from drowning. I dried it off, set it in a dry spot, and it crawled away.”

  Out of the darkness Nolay replied, “Well, I reckon Speed would know about miracles, ’cause it’s pretty much a miracle he’s able to sit on that bench every day. Bones, you stop by and talk with him nearly every day, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, as often as I can. He’s so full of information, and I really enjoy his company. If I ask him a question and he don’t know the answer, next time I’m with him he’ll have figured it out.”

  “Speed always was a bright fella. Him and me go a long way back. He’s about five years younger than me, but we did attend the same school together.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “You know how he got his nickname, Speed?”

  “No, sir. I never have asked him that. I thought that was his real name.”

  “Well, back when we was kids, that boy was just about the fastest runner in the whole state of Florida. He actually raced against a horse one time and nearly outrun ’im.

  “He was sharp as a tack, everyone thought he had a bright future. But then the war started up and he joined the army. And I guess the rest is history.”

  “Yes, sir. I guess it is.”

  “But now, let me get this straight. It was a miracle that you saved that gopher, so you earned a little piece of a star?”

  “Well, I reckon me and that gopher will divvy up a piece of star. It was a miracle for both of us.”

  In the dimness I could see Nolay’s shadow as he shook his halo of black curls back and forth. I couldn’t see his face, but I could feel his smile.

  As we headed back to the house, the kerosene lanterns flickered and spilled out a soft orange glow through the windows. At night our house came alive, like it had a heartbeat all its own. Mama’s silhouette moved around in the kitchen window as she fixed our supper.

  When we walked inside, Nippy the raccoon scurried across the floor and made little chirping noises to let me know she was hungry.

  The kitchen filled with the aroma of frying slabs of fatback. Mama deftly picked up a heavy cast-iron frying pan and poured the sizzling grease into the grease jar that she kept on top of the stove. She called it her secret seasoning, but it wasn’t much of a secret; everyone I knew had a grease jar on their stove.

  As we sat down for supper I looked over at Nolay and said, “You know I can’t help but to keep thinkin’ about what happened when we were out huntin’ rabbits today.”

  “What exactly are you referring to?”

  “About when we met up with the Reems brothers and how they acted toward you.”

  “Bones, them men ain’t worth takin’ the time to think about. Neither one of ’em could find their tail with both hands and a flashlight.”

  “Well, it’s really not about how smart or stupid they are, it’s more about how mean they are. Like today when ol’ Peckerhead called you a dirty monkey, why did he do that?”

  Mama’s eyes snapped up and shot across at me. “Bones, you will not be repeating insults to your daddy. And remember your manners. That would be Mister Peckerhead to you. You are much too young to be calling an adult by his first name.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll remember that. But Mama, it’s the truth, that’s what he said to Nolay today. And their kids, those Reems boys, are even worse; every time one of them sees me they call me names. They’ll say things like, ‘You’re no better than a dirty monkey,’ or they call me squaw or something else mean. Or at least they do any time Little Man isn’t around.”

  Mama’s eyes softened as she looked at me and said, “I’m sorry to hear that, Bones. Some people just enjoy hurting other people. But it’s only words. They can’t hurt you unless you let them. Just let them roll off you like drops of water.”

  Nolay put his fork down, leaned back in his chair and said, “Now, Honey Girl, you know that words can hurt a lot more than some water splattering on you. They can burn clean through your skin and right down to the bone. I can attest to that firsthand. And that Reems family is a bunch of no-account lowlifes. And I tell you what, I don’t feel good about them or them durn Yankees prowling around on my land. I don’t like it one bit. Next time I see ’em I just might do something about it.”

  Nolay looked directly at me. “Bones, they call us dirty monkeys because when the Spaniards first arrived here on our shores my people lived in huts built of palms fronds and mud. Back then, takin’ a bath wasn’t so important as it is nowadays. Matter of fact, a little dirt and smoke smell helped to keep the skeeters away, so most of ’em were pretty muddied up. So the Spaniards called them mico sucio, which means ‘dirty monkey’ in Spanish. Later on that name grew into Miccosukee, which is what my people are called today. It’s a strong name. A proud name. But it sure didn’t start out that way.”

  Nolay leaned forward, picked up his fork, and took a bite of food. A frosty blanket of silence fell over the three of us. I looked over at Mama, but she was staring down at her plate.

  I
took a sip of my tea, sucked in a deep breath, and said, “Nolay, when you were little, did Soap Sally ever get after you?”

  My words sliced into the blanket and split it open. It spilled down around us in invisible threads.

  Nolay looked up and said, “She sure did. But as you can see, she never caught me.”

  “Do you know any kids she did catch?”

  Nolay leaned in toward me and whispered, “Bones, you been hearing these stories all your life. You know ol’ Sally’s been in these swamps a long time. Every now and then a kid would go missin’.”

  I felt my eyes widen. I whispered back, “Have you ever seen her? Do you know what she looks like?”

  “She looks like any ol’ witch does. When I was little, sometimes at night, I would hear her prowling around, lookin’ for a kid to snatch up. When she passed by my window, I could smell her. She smelled like smoke and lye soap. She spends a lot of time bent over a big ol’ black pot, stirring up kid-soap.”

  I sat, almost too stunned to speak, and looked from Nolay to Mama and back again. Finally I blurted out, “That’s what I smelled out there today when I let the rabbit go! And I’ve smelled it before. I know I have!”

  Mama put her fork down and said, “Bones, your eyes look like they are going to pop out of your head.” She turned to Nolay. “Why on earth do you keep telling such stories? You know there is no such thing.”

  Nolay shrugged. “How do you know she ain’t out there?”

  “Because I have never seen a witch. They don’t exist.”

  “You believe in the devil, don’t you? And you ain’t never seen him.”

  “That is totally beside the point. You should stop telling scary stories to Bones. Or any child, for that matter.”

  “I ain’t trying to scare Bones or anyone else. I just think kids should be on the lookout for things like that.”

  Mama looked across at me. “Bones, you have nothing to be scared of. Soap Sally is just an old swamp legend. She does not exist.” Mama shook her head, let out a little sigh, and turned the conversation to another subject: electricity. For the hundredth time, she said, “It sure would be nice to have a icebox.”

  Nolay leveled his cool blue eyes in her direction and replied, for the hundredth time, “Honey Girl, we are only five telephone poles away from electricity. Before you know it, I’ll have you a big white shiny icebox sitting right there in that corner.” He flashed her one of his dazzling smiles, then looked across the table at me and winked.

  Mama wrinkled up her nose, and a smile slowly slid across her face. “How many times have I heard you say that?”

  As Nolay and Mama went back and forth, I sat there thinking about Soap Sally and some of the places I had smelled that peculiar scent. I wasn’t about to open my mouth and say so out loud, but I was almost certain I had smelled that exact scent out at Miss Eunice’s house. For me to say such a thing about an old woman’s house would surely end up in my ear getting a good pulling.

  Nearly every evening, after supper, it was story time. Sometimes Mama and me would sit captivated as Nolay spun tales of his childhood in the swamps. He told of times when alligators were so plentiful you could walk clear across the water on top of them. Of nights filled with the haunting screams of panthers as they prowled and stalked their prey.

  Of course there were the stories about Soap Sally and what a slippery old witch she was. If you were good, you didn’t have anything to worry about. But if you were bad, that was another story altogether. Problem was, I didn’t quite know how bad you had to be to be turned into soap. Mama would nearly always interrupt Nolay with something like “You stop telling scary stories, especially at night. You’ll give us all nightmares.”

  I was mesmerized by his story of Sandy Claws. She was a black bear that had a taste for his mama’s pies and would steal them right off the window ledge as they sat out to cool. Nolay would shake his head. “That bear was quite a character. She started coming around our house when she was just a cub following behind her mama. Then one day she showed up by herself. That’s when mama’s pies started goin’ missin’. We would go outside, and sure enough, there would be her footprints with them big ol’ claws diggin’ into the sand. Mama’s pie pan would be laying there licked clean as a mirror.”

  Other nights it would be Mama’s turn to read us stories from her collection of Saturday Evening Post magazines. Me, Nippy, and a couple of cats would crawl in bed between her and Nolay. Mama didn’t mind Nippy sleeping in bed with me. She was a real clean critter, not much bigger than a cat, and she made the sweetest purring sounds you ever did hear.

  The orange glow of our kerosene lamp danced around the corners of the room as Mama’s melodic voice mingled with the songs of the night. In the distance the muffled bellow of a bull gator looking for a friend blended in with chirping crickets and croaking frogs. Lulled by the sweet sound of swamp and family, I drifted off to sleep. In the morning I would wake up in my own bed, surrounded by an assortment of animals.

  Thursday morning I woke up bright and early. Right after breakfast, Nolay asked if I wanted to go with him to the Grant Fish House. “I want to find out when Ironhead plans on going net fishing again.”

  “Yes, sir, can I bring Nippy with me?” I always enjoyed summer break because I got to spend a lot more time with Nolay than during schooltime.

  “I guess, but you gotta keep her on a leash. That dang coon is overcurious.”

  When we pulled up to the Fish House, a small group of men were milling around by the entrance to the docks. Ironhead saw us drive up and walked over to the truck. He was a young man with a body shaped like a beer keg. His thick arms and legs jutted straight out, as if he didn’t have any elbows or knees. His head sat directly on his shoulders with no visible neck. Sometimes when a ray of sunshine crossed his red hair just right, it looked like his head was a blazing fire.

  Ironhead leaned one hand on the side of the truck and said, “I tell you what, hit’s been a-rainin’ bullfrogs. I been meanin’ to come out y’all’s house and see if y’all done floated away.”

  “You’re sure right about that; it’s been a dang wet week. But it’s a good thing, ’cause the swamps always need a healthy dose of summer rain.”

  Ironhead let out a little sniffling grunt, signaling he had some important news to tell us. He considered himself a verbal newspaper in our community. “The sheriff stopped by here this morning and tolt us he was looking for a missin’ Yankee man. Sheriff said the Yankee man’s partner reported him missin’ yesterday. His partner said the two of ’em was out by the Reems place, where it butts up against your swamp, and they got separated. Durn strange if you ask me.”

  Before Nolay could answer, Ironhead took a couple more sniffles and continued, “Two fellas come nosing around two, three days ago. Well, hit was one of them. You seen anything out your way?”

  “I reckon a couple of fellas stopped by our place, but I didn’t pay much attention.”

  I was just ready to open my mouth when Nolay’s eyes turned in my direction and put a lock on my lips. I don’t know why he didn’t mention seeing those Yankee men a second time.

  Nolay set up a time with Ironhead to go net fishing the following week, and we headed back home.

  On the ride back I looked over at Nolay and the words tumbled out of my mouth. “Nolay, don’t you remember them two Yankees that come out to our house? You scared ’em so bad, they broke their car getting out of the driveway.”

  “Yeah, I remember them two fellas, but I don’t know if it’s the same two Ironhead is talking about. There’s more than a couple of Yankees nosing around these days.”

  I could see by the way Nolay cocked his chin a little to one side that he was through talking. But I was certain it was the same ones Ironhead was talking about, because they were the only Yankees I had seen around here.

  When we pulled up to our driveway, I saw my best friend, Little Man, standing by the front door. He had a croker sack slung over one shoulder and a four-pro
ng gig over the other. He was a full year older than me, and I couldn’t remember ever not having Little Man as my best friend. We sat together every day on the school bus; we shared our food, our thoughts, and our feelings about what a waste of time school was.

  Little Man and his family were our closest neighbors; they lived about two miles away. Nolay and Little Man’s daddy, Mr. Cotton, grew up together. Mr. Cotton was called Cotton because he had a headful of hair as white as a cotton ball. Nolay said Mr. Cotton was one of the best durn hunters in the entire county. And Little Man had a talent for worm fiddling. He could wiggle a stick in the ground and worms would just come dancing up to the top.

  Little Man was a big boy, nearly as big as his older twin brothers, Earl and Ethan. They were six years older than him and had just graduated from school. His real name was Irvin, but only his mama ever called him that. His soft, doe-brown eyes were placed wide apart in his round face, which, like his entire body, was a mass of freckles. When he was curious about something, he had a way of scrunching up his face so a perfect question mark wiggled up right between his eyes. No matter how much grease he slapped on his wheat-colored hair, it sat on his head like a bird’s nest.

  I got out of the truck and walked up to him. “Hey, Little Man.”

  “Howdy, Bones, I’m goin’ giggin’ down at the river. You wanna come along?”

  “Sure I do.”

  He held up the croker sack and said, “I got something for your mama.”

  “Come on inside. She’s most likely in the kitchen.”

  Little Man walked in, set the croker sack on the kitchen table, and said, “Mornin’, Miss Lori. This here is a mess of fresh-picked mustard greens and butter beans.”

  “Why, thank you, Little Man, and how’s your family doing?”

  “Everyone’s fine. Pa’s grinding up a load of sugarcane, said to tell you he’d have a batch of sorghum syrup by the end of the week.”

  I broke into the conversation. “Mama, Little Man is going fish gigging down at the river. Can I go with him, please, Mama?”