Fireflies in December

by Jennifer Erin Valent

  By that time, most of the white men involved had fallen to the ground, incapacitated, and several of the colored men gave my daddy their attention as they paused to wipe the sweat from their foreheads.

  “We done got a right to get justice,” one man said breathlessly. “Ain’t no justice for us unless we make it ourselves.”

  “Ain’t gonna be no justice for you in them courtrooms, neither,” Daddy told him flatly. “You understand that? Just as easy as they let Walt go free, they’ll lock you in irons for life. Or worse. Make no mistake!” He waved a hand wildly toward the road. “Now you best hightail it outta here before you catch trouble, ya hear? Scatter! All of you!”

  Like usual, my daddy made enough sense to convince them, and they all started back to their women, who had been screaming after them the whole time.

  I don’t remember much of what happened after that. Once Daddy got back to the truck, Gemma and I about passed out in a daze. The only thing I do remember is that my daddy never mentioned it to us again. It seemed to me that he believed by rights he should punish us for sneaking around like that but didn’t want to, so he thought if he never mentioned it we could just pretend it never happened. He must have gotten to Momma, because she never said a word either, and that just wasn’t like Momma. Left on her own, she would have babied us until we were better and then laid into us until we wished we were sick again.

  Even Luke never said a word, but he was more of a presence than he’d ever been before. From then on, when he wasn’t working, he was like my shadow. To me, it couldn’t get any better, but Gemma kept muttering things about how “that man should take up a hobby or somethin’.” When she was with me, he was her shadow too, and she’d always go around telling him we didn’t need him tagging along at our heels all the time.

  I shushed her every time because I didn’t want him getting ideas.

  If Luke Talley was going to have a hobby, I figured following me around was the best he could get.

  Chapter 13

  Otis Tinker came by early the morning after the trial, toting a sack over his broad shoulder.

  I ran out to meet him, happy to see a visitor to our forbidden farm. “Hey there, Mr. Otis. You comin’ to see Daddy?”

  “Well now, I might like that. But I actually came to see you, Miss Jessie.” He set the bag down on the ground and pulled out a tiny gray kitten. “You know our cat, Tawny? She done gone and had herself a litter.”

  “Sure enough?”

  “Sure enough, and we thought maybe you might like this one for yourself, if your momma and daddy don’t mind.” My face must have lit up with the excitement of having that kitten, because Mr. Tinker laughed at my expression. “I’m guessin’ you’d like to have it.”

  “Unless Duke decides to make it supper,” Daddy said as he came walking up behind me. He took his hat off and tossed it onto a nearby fence post. “How come your pets are always havin’ babies, Otis? You got the most romantic property in Calloway.”

  “Can’t keep an eye on ’em all the time, Harley.”

  The two men laughed, but once Daddy caught my expectant gaze, he turned serious. “You plan on takin’ care of this here kitten?”

  “Yes’r.”

  “Like you took care of the puppy that ran away?”

  “He was too rowdy,” I said in my defense. “And he liked chasin’ after skunks. I wasn’t gonna track him down when he was trackin’ a skunk.”

  “What about the rabbit?”

  “I didn’t know those berries would make her sick.”

  “And the duck?”

  “Daddy!”

  Daddy smiled at me and asked, “Otis, why in the world do you keep bringin’ them animals over here when my girl lets ’em run off or just up and kills ’em altogether?”

  “Better’n havin’ the missus tearin’ into me because our place is crawlin’ with animals.”

  “I see. So you think it best to fill my place instead.”

  Mr. Tinker grinned and patted the kitten on its fuzzy gray head. “You ’bout summed it up. Now, can the girl keep the old thing or do I have to drown it in the creek?”

  “Daddy,” I cried, “we can’t let him drown the poor thing!”

  Daddy shook his head. “Now you done it. You sure know how to put me in a bind, tellin’ the girl you’re gonna drown it and all.”

  “Well, I ain’t gonna feed it. I got enough mouths to feed as it is.”

  “Like there ain’t another family in all of Calloway that’s in the market for a cat,” Daddy muttered. But he took a good long look at me and said, “Well, if you promise to take good care of it . . .”

  I jumped up and down happily and laid a kiss on Daddy’s cheek. “Thank you, Daddy! Thank you, Mr. Otis!”

  I ran off right away to show Gemma. “What d’ya think I should name him?” I asked her as I sat stroking the kitten’s fur.

  “Don’t ask me. You’re the creative one, always comin’ up with nicknames and stories and such.”

  “What about Spot?”

  “What in the world would you call it Spot for?”

  “It’s got spots, stupid!”

  “So’s near every other cat or dog in the world. And they’s all called Spot. Can’t you come up with somethin’ new?”

  I shot her a sharp look, but it did seem she was right. No kitten of mine should have a boring name. “How ’bout Paws?”

  “How ’bout somethin’ that don’t have to do with how it looks?” Gemma chided.

  “All right! And here I thought you didn’t care none what I called it.”

  “You asked my opinion,” she shot back, “so I gave it.”

  “Fine. Why don’t we call it George.”

  “George?” she spluttered. Even the kitten looked annoyed by that choice, his ears pricking up like he’d been startled. “Who in God’s green earth ever called a kitten George?”

  “My granddaddy’s name was George,” I said defensively.

  Gemma playfully dug her elbow into my rib. “You may as well just name the thing Luke.”

  “Can’t name a kitten after Luke. What girl wants to name an animal after the man she’s gonna marry? I go and do that, I’ll feel all funny someday callin’ my husband after my cat.”

  “Oh, go on. Talkin’ of marryin’ Luke again,” Gemma said with a shake of her dark curls. “Like he sees you any different than his sister. And besides, I was just funnin’ about namin’ the cat Luke.”

  “Luke ain’t nothin’ to fun about,” I said. “And it ain’t for you to be decidin’ who’ll marry who, anyhow.”

  By this time, Gemma had gotten fed up with the entire kitten-naming process, so she lay back against a tree trunk and sighed, her arms folded over her chest like a corpse. I could see she was annoyed with me, and when she got like that, she stayed that way until she was good and ready to talk to me again. I knew it was no use fooling with her, so I wandered back to the fields where I’d seen Jeb in the tomatoes.

  “Hey there, Miss Jessilyn,” he said as I approached him with my new kitten.

  “Hey there, Jeb.”

  “Whatcha got there?”

  “New kitten. Mr. Otis gave him to me.”

  Jeb set his hoe down and leaned a sweaty arm on it, pushing the hoe into the dirt as the earth gave way under his weight. “You say Mr. Tinker’s here?”

  “Yes’r.”

  He nodded and said, “He bring you this here kitten?”

  “Yes’r,” I answered again.

  Jeb stared at the kitten for a few seconds, and then he just said, “Huh” and went back to his hoeing.

  I ignored his odd response and asked him if he had any good ideas for the kitten’s name that didn’t have to do with how the kitten looked and that weren’t after a family member.

  He didn’t seem to quite understand me, and it was a good full minute of silence before he finally said, “Ain’t never had me no pets. I figure a child what’s got one is pretty lucky.”

  “S’pose so,” I murmure
d, holding the cat up to my face so I could inspect him. His little pink tongue flashed out and caught the tip of my nose three times before I could move him away. “I suppose I am lucky.” I looked at the cat and said, “I guess Lucky’s as good a name for you as any. What do you think, Jeb?”

  But Jeb had gone. He had the strangest way of slipping away without a body knowing, like a ghost. One minute he was there in front of you and then . . . whoosh! He was just gone. That was one more thing about Jeb that kept Luke from trusting him. He said that any man who was as stealthy as that had to have learned it from years of being sneaky. In Luke’s mind, poor Jeb had been everything from a spy to a thief to a convict on the lam.

  For my part, I didn’t know what I thought Jeb was, but I trusted him nonetheless. I just had that gut feeling about him, and Daddy always told me to put stock in those gut feelings.

  Daddy and I headed into town on a Wednesday in August, loaded with chores to take care of. These days we went into town so little, we had plenty of errands when we did. Gemma had a headache and Momma didn’t want to go into town to put up with people’s nonsense, so it was just the two of us, and I was happy. It gave me a chance to have all of Daddy’s attention, even if we were in the truck for only ten minutes each way.

  The ride seemed particularly bumpy, and as I listened to Daddy talk about the presidential election and how Mr. Roosevelt was a lock to win, I tried to not think about how my stomach had started to hurt. By the time we parked along the sidewalk, my head was swimming.

  “You okay?” Daddy asked when we got out of the truck.

  “The bumpy ride made me feel queasy. I’ll be okay.”

  He took my face in both of his hands and looked at me closely. “You look a little green.”

  “I’m fine. I just need some air, so I’ll go get the mail, all right? The walk will do me good.”

  I walked slowly, breathing in long, rhythmic breaths, and within a few minutes, the dizziness started to ease. I passed by Mr. Dane reading his paper on the bench behind Mr. Poe, who was studying a crack in the sidewalk. “Mornin’, Mr. Dane,” I said brightly.

  Mr. Dane lowered his paper slightly, squinted at me, and said, “That you, Jessilyn Lassiter?”

  “Yes’r.”

  He looked at me for a few seconds before putting his paper back up without saying another word. He’d never been the friendliest of men, but I felt his frigid response keenly.

  I turned my attention to Mr. Poe instead, knowing he was the one person in town who would talk to me. He was an odd man, Mr. Poe, and it wasn’t just his speech. He was what Momma called “a little simpleminded.” He didn’t talk too much, but he would talk to anyone, no matter their race or creed. Knowing that, I felt particularly comfortable in his presence right then. “You lose somethin’, Mr. Poe?” I asked, eager to interact with someone.

  “Lost muh change,” he replied, speaking in a fast mumble as he always did.

  “Your change?”

  “Muh penny. Had me a good ol’ Injun penny.”

  “Penny, you say?” I asked, hoping to clarify his jumbled words.

  “Indian penny, he says,” Mr. Dane replied from behind his paper. “The old man here thinks he’s lost an Indian penny.”

  I smiled at Mr. Dane’s smart tongue, but I wasn’t sure a man of seventy should be calling a man of sixty-five “old man.” I bent at the waist and examined the crack, trying to help Mr. Poe find his lost penny.

  Simplemindedness aside, I’d always liked Mr. Poe. His daddy had been a well-respected judge while he lived, and after his passing, Mr. Poe had lived alone with his mother until she passed on a year ago. Some days I would go over to Mr. Poe’s house to take corn and snaps. On those days, he would show me his collections. They were all over the house in cigar boxes. Things like matchsticks, spent shotgun cartridges, and soda caps. And now, apparently, Indian pennies.

  “Don’t see nothin’ shiny,” I said.

  “T’weren’t shiny.”

  “An unshiny penny?” I asked.

  “Yep. T’weren’t shiny.”

  I heard Mr. Dane shake his paper three times and clear his throat as though our search was putting a damper on his paper-reading efforts.

  I ignored him and continued my hunt for one dull Indian penny. If nothing else, the search had given me a diversion from my whirling stomach, and I quickly forgot the queasiness that had struck me on our trip. “Pretty important to you, that penny, Mr. Poe?” I asked.

  “Got me a collection,” he mumbled, the gap from his two missing teeth making his t’s sound like s’s. Those whistles were like guideposts in Mr. Poe’s clipped conversation, giving me the necessary hints as to what he was saying. “Found this one in the diner. Wanted tuh add it.”

  I shuffled around to change my position, hoping a different viewpoint might help me find the penny, but I had no luck. The whole time we looked, Mr. Poe muttered things I didn’t understand, but I could tell by his tone he didn’t mean for me to. Every now and again he’d stop and cluck his tongue a few times thoughtfully and say, “I’ll be . . .”

  It was after the fourth “I’ll be” that Mr. Dane threw his paper down in disgust and stood. “For the love of all that’s holy, ain’t a man got a right to sit here and read the paper without havin’ to hear crazy talk?” He dug in his trouser pocket, pulled out a handful of about twenty coins, and fished through them with his middle finger. “Dime, dime, quarter, nickel, dime . . . Aha! There!” He handed a nice, shiny penny to Mr. Poe. “Take the stupid thing and be done with it. I ain’t got but an hour to read the paper before the sun gets too high, and I want to do it in peace.”

  Mr. Poe tipped the penny toward the sun to get a good look. “T’ain’t my penny,” he determined at length. He pocketed the new penny without another word and went back to studying the crack.

  Mr. Dane’s face turned stormy, his lips pursed together like he meant to say something angry, but he just turned away and left us behind.

  Mr. Poe continued to look for his penny, and I sat on the bench to watch. About two minutes after Mr. Dane ran off, Mr. Poe found that penny and then sat down beside me, triumphant. “Ain’t seen you much,” he said after a few more minutes.

  “That’s true.”

  “Been sick?”

  “No, just busy.” I figured it best to avoid the particulars with Mr. Poe since he likely didn’t know much about our current troubles. “Farm gets busy this time of year.”

  “Sure ’nough.” He tapped the penny against his knee. “How’s yer diddy?”

  “My daddy?” I repeated. “He’s fine. Just now, he’s gettin’ some supplies and things. I was headin’ to the post office myself, till I saw you and Mr. Dane.”

  “Town’s been busy too,” Mr. Poe said.

  “Usually is.”

  “More’n usual, what with all that Cy Fuller business.”

  My skin turned to pins and needles, and Mr. Poe’s words hung in the humid air. I finally loosened my tongue enough to say, “Cy Fuller?”

  “Yep. Cy’s done turned up dead.”

  I stared at my knees, hoping my loose hair hid my anxious face. My sweaty hands gripped the slats in the bench like vises, and that whooshing sound started to deafen my ears again.

  Mr. Poe seemed oblivious to my discomfort as he sighed and said, “Yep, they done found ’im on the edge of his prop’ty just s’mornin’.”

  “How?” I asked in a whisper.

  “How what?”

  “How’d he . . . how’d he die?”

  “Shot clean through. Bled out, they’s guessin’. Happened a while ago, so they say.”

  I stood quickly, rocking the bench with a loud rattle.

  “You goin’?” Mr. Poe asked.

  “Gotta get the letters,” I murmured as I rushed off rudely.

  I wandered through my errands that morning without even realizing I was doing them. My mind was far too preoccupied with Cy Fuller, and the town added plenty of fuel to the fire. Cy’s death was the number o
ne topic of conversation, and everyone had an idea of what had happened.

  “Likely got himself shot over those gamblin’ debts of his,” Mrs. Tott said to Mrs. Crumley. “His wife was always wor-ryin’ about that.”

  Mrs. Crumley nodded. “Be sure your sins will find you out.”

  Mr. Will Calhoun thought it was an accident. “Fuller was a sight with that gun of his,” he said to Wink Burns. “Always told ’im he’d shoot his foot off one day.” He shook his head and chewed thoughtfully on his pipe. “Didn’t think he’d up and kill hisself, though.”

  The theories abounded. Some believed Mrs. Fuller had shot her wicked husband in a rage, unable to take him anymore. Others felt Cy had been killed by a thief whose caper was interrupted.

  I was the only one who thought I’d done it. The way I saw it, not one other person in Calloway had that blood on their hands. The stifling heat was nothing compared to the burden of guilt I carried around that day, and I felt sure that my face must have shown it. People looked at me oddly everywhere I walked, and though it was likely only due to my circumstances with Gemma, in my mind I was sure they suspected me of having a hand in Cy’s death. I was plagued by fear and shame.

  Daddy didn’t say much to me on the way home, a sure sign that his mind was bent on something particular, and I was sure of what that was. He knew as well as I did that there was a real possibility I was a murderer, but neither of us was willing to say it out loud.

  When we reached home, we got out of the truck silently, but on my way inside, I stopped and looked at him desperately. He stared at me long and hard, and then, reaching out to ruffle my hair, he said, “It’s all right. It’ll all be all right.”

  Up to that point in my life, hearing those words from my daddy would always make things seem better. It had always been like my daddy held the controls to everything, and as long as he said it would be fine, I could trust that he’d make sure it was. But times were changing and too fast for my comfort. I was getting older, and I realized I had entered a place where Daddy couldn’t fix everything anymore.