Grandpa’s face closed up like a turtle drawing into himself. “The sheriff?”
“Yes. He said you’d remember how the Straker boys had a still somewheres in the swamp, they never found where.”
“I’ve heard tell of it.”
“Well, the sheriff says somebody’s found it and set it going again, because there’s sure liquor going out of the swamp like it was before they caught the Strakers and sent them up. The revenue men are looking, he says.”
“What’s it got to do with me?”
Tammy turned back to her dishes and rattled them all she had a mind to. She knew now that it was true, what she’d been thinking for a long time, ever since she saw the load of corn Grandpa rowed way up the river and got from some farmer over on the Louisiana side. He’d had it covered with his old coat and a gunny sack, but she’d seen it all right. “Sheriff wants you to be on the watch for any signs, he said.”
Grandpa puffed on his pipe. “Next time you see Cap’n Joe, you tell him I’m much obliged and for him to tell the sheriff I’ll sure keep an eye out. Now fetch me down the lantern from the shelf.”
Tammy wiped her hands on the sides of her skirt and got the lantern. “Plenty of coal oil in it, but looks like the wick could do with a trimming.”
Grandpa opened it up and turned the wick, pinching off the black. “Make me a pot of coffee, child. Leave it setting where it’ll keep hot. I’ll need it when I get home.”
“What you going to do in the night, Grandpa?” Tammy set the plates on the shelf and put the knives and forks beside them.
“Got to see if there’s any floaters come down.”
Tammy sat down at the table, her arms resting on it, her gray eyes growing wide and dark as she thought of calamity come to someone. “What happened?”
“Fellow was telling me this morning. Airplane crashed smack down into the river a while back. Flew the water up like a fountain, he said. Broke itself to bits.”
Tammy drew a long breath. Seemed like she could almost see the plane coming along fast and sure and high, with people sitting in it, talking about nothing more than this or that, thinking ahead in their minds about the next stopping place and how they’d just step out on the ground and go about their business. Not thinking about all the miles in between and the river and the swamp down below. People in a dream, they were. Then down, down, the dream breaking, the real world hitting them, so that if they knew anything, they knew there was more to going than just stepping aboard and stepping out when they got where they were going. “Did they—were they all kilt?”
“They rescued two, kind of banged up, and they got one out of the wreckage. Two they couldn’t find, maybe three. Somebody claims the last minute before they took off from some place out West, a man comes and hitches a ride. So they don’t know what’s his name. There’ll be good reward money for the others, if I have any luck. Now give me a light. I got to get going.”
Tammy put a flame to the wick. It burned bright and the tin reflector Grandpa had made threw the light out strong and clear in a half circle. “All the same,” she said, “seems like you ought to wait for daylight.”
“I got other things to do by daylight. Besides, it’s time they was acoming down, near as I can calculate.” He rose stiffly and reached down his old coat and hat from the nail. When he’d got them on, he pulled a bottle from his pocket and set it on the table. “Fill her up, honey. Maybe it’ll keep the aching out of my joints.”
Tammy took the jug from the shelf above the wood box and poured the bottle half-full of corn liquor. Grandma never would fill his bottle but half-full so she wouldn’t either. It wasn’t seemly for a preacher to drink more’n half a bottle at a time, she said, even if he was just a kind of off-and-on lay preacher.
Grandpa had knocked his pipe empty and now he cut himself a chew of tobacco. It filled out his cheek and gave him a one-sided plumpness. “Funny, how anybody gets drowned betwixt here and Vicksburg ends up floating in that big old whirlpool. I’ve got good money for fishing them out, and them that ain’t claimed I’ve give a Christian burial up yonder atop the bluff.”
Tammy put the jug back where it belonged. “I hope these are all claimed because we got no more green paint to paint the date on any more grave markers. I used the last on these shelves.” Grandpa chuckled. “I got better reason than that for hoping they get claimed. I could sure use some reward money right now.” He picked up the lantern and went out.
Tammy put the coffee to boil and built up the fire. Then she buttoned on her old plaid jacket against the night air and went out on deck. She stood in the dark, on the blind side of the lantern, watching Grandpa make a neat coil of his rope. The lantern flung a fan of yellow light over him and across black water to the shore. It lighted up the hens, roosting on a limb of the hackberry tree, and they edged along, nudging one another, making little uneasy sounds. Grandpa’s shadow danced about among the tree trunks, and the green of the leaves had a strange, unreal look, like the artificial flowers on Grandma’s old straw hat. “Let me go with you, Grandpa,” Tammy said.
He flung the coil of rope down into the skiff that was drawn up close to the side, and the grappling hook sent a shiver through it. “It’d turn your stomach, child, if I’s to have any luck. You can hand me down the light when I get in.” He braced himself against his aching and climbed down, grunting, into the skiff.
Tammy looked over her shoulder and saw the blackness of the river and the moonless sky, a thin mist dimming the stars. She heard the ripple of the current along the side and it seemed as if Grandpa was too feeble against the force of the river, too little and bent and old against the dark. She took up the lantern. “Get onto the stern, Grandpa,” and her voice surprised her, sounding so like Grandma’s. “Move on. My stomach’s strong and my arms too, for rowing.”
He sat motionless a moment, not looking at her, hearing the echo of Grandma, maybe, savoring it in his mind. Then he did as she said.
2.
IT WAS a steady pull upstream and a hard one, even though they followed the shore where the current took its time. The lantern shone in Tammy’s eyes but she could sense the height of the bluff towering on her left and the wideness of the river on the other side where northern waters hurried along, not yet slowed by the lazy land. Nighttime everything was different, the water deeper for being black and its depths closer, all ready and waiting. The sky waited too and not a star would stir no matter what it saw. Now and then between strokes of the oar an owl’s quavery cry came out of the woods. It was enough to give a body the shivers. A bad sign, for sure, folks said—a sign of dying. Maybe it was crying tonight for those they sought, for those already dead.
Grandpa leaned forward, squirting a stream of tobacco juice into the water, watching the water. “Pull hard now,” he said with sharpness.
Under the floor of the boat there was a new movement, a tumble of waters struggling against one another. Tammy looked over the side and the sight of yellow foam in the lantern’s yellow light made her heart beat faster. They were coming into the edge of the whirlpool and she had never been here before by night. She pulled on the oars with all her strength and had a pride in her muscles, that they were young and powerful against the river’s might.
“Now ease your oars,” Grandpa said. He turned his lantern on the dark wooded wall of the bluff, and here was a strangeness made doubly strange by night. Slowly they drew away from the land. They were caught by the curving current that bore them outward, upstream.
The worst of the rowing was over with now. The eddy’s sweep and only a guiding oar would carry them where they would go. This was the lookingtime with the lantern held high so its light pushed back the darkness to show what floated with them in the whirlpool’s outer arc and what moved faster in the swifter inner circles. “I declare, Grandpa,” Tammy said, speaking because she had to show him she was not afeard of the dead, “I declare I wish I could see a good big bunch of chicken wire to fence us in a bigger garden place.”
Grandpa took the bottle from his pocket and had a sip to warm his innards. “Look where the drift of logs goes all together, child. Never mind your chicken wire nor the boxes and boards. We’re not out for them tonight.”
No, Tammy thought, it would be something low-lying in the water, dark and given up to the way of the water. Not like the dead trees that went as if rebelling, with upflung branches, all rigid and resisting. Not like that great bare trunk of the forest with roots outspread before it, going proudly like something out of the past, high-prowed, in dignity—like a picture in one of her books. “See, Grandpa, that one. It’s like the barge that was a bier that the princess floated on—Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat.”
“Leave off your fancies and look sharp.”
There was no land now within the lantern’s glow, only the dark river and the things that floated on it. Tammy looked up into the sky to rest her eyes from looking sharp. It was still above them, holding the far, pale stars. She reckoned you couldn’t ever get away from the stars, not on land or water or even up in the air. Only down under the water, maybe there the sky was lost. Then she saw a brightening in the east and the shape of the bluff’s tall trees standing out black and sharp against it. “The moon’s coming over the bluff, Grandpa. It will help us.”
Grandpa just kept on looking, leaning a little now as if he saw something. “What’s that beyond the logs, all low and turning?”
The blood pounded hard in Tammy’s ears and she stiffened her-self against what she should see as her eyes followed the line of his pointing. “N-no, Grandpa,” she said on a long breath, “that’s only a barrel, that’s all it is.”
“M-m-m. Sight ain’t as good as it used to be.” But he must have seen something even as he spoke. He was holding it with his eyes while he kept the lantern high and reached down with one hand to fumble for the rope at his feet. “Pull in, child—there’s something.” His voice was a whisper, though the loudest speech could not disturb the thing he saw.
Tammy thrust in her oar. “Where, Grandpa, where? Show me——” Her breath gave out.
“The big log with the roots—there’s something more, tied on, atop it.”
“The barge—the bier,” Tammy whispered. “I should have known——” The log was drifting closer, overtaking them because it was nearer the center of the eddy and faster moving. Now, beyond the outflung roots, she saw a shape that was not the shape of the log alone. There was something trailing in the water—a leg hanging down. There were arms too, clasped round the log in desperate embrace, the dark head hanging in a final giving up. Tammy, holding the oars in one hand, lifted the other to her lips, pressing back her cry of pity. For here was something worse than death. Here was struggle against death, here was a last defeat.
Grandpa set the lantern on the seat beside him and readied his rope. He cast out his hook, shaking the boat with the force of his casting. The grapple caught fast in the tangled mass of roots and he drew the rope taut. “Row out!” he cried with urgency.
Tammy gave her strength to the oars and kept her eyes on the floor of the boat, not wanting to see put to shame this one who had fought to live, who being hurt beyond swimming had found a log to fasten to, roots to hold on by. For such a one it would be a shame to be thus handled, dragged and grunted over, with swearing under the breath.
Grandpa, leaning, tipped the skiff and Tammy flung her weight against his. She kept her eyes on the wet floor boards, yet saw in spite of herself the flash of his knife as he slashed the strap, the cord or whatever it was that bound the body fast.
“God Almighty,” Grandpa cried out of the midst of his hauling, “this one’s alive! Help me, Tammy, quick!”
She was struck atremble but her hands could help, no matter if they shook. It was a struggle to tug, to lift and balance and shift the long weight of him with the head falling back all helpless, the arms hanging loose. Alive, alive—this one’s alive, she kept saying to herself in wonder. They got him in at last with his legs thrust under the middle seat, Tammy sitting on the bottom with his head in her lap to keep it from the water. She shrugged off her jacket to wrap round his chest, she held him close to warm him.
Grandpa had the oars now, his feet planted wide astride the man’s middle, the lantern set in the bow. “Here—” he took out his bottle and reached it down to her—“get some of this down him.”
It was hard to make out where his mouth was but she found his lips with her fingers and tipped the bottle to moisten them. The drops ran down his chin in a pitiful way and were lost. He breathed on, light and silent with the least small motion of his chest. Her hand could scarcely feel it or the slow faint beating of his heart. “God, let it beat!” she prayed with fierceness. “God, keep him abreathing!” As she kept on praying, it seemed as if maybe his heart beat harder. Then she felt the shape of his face with her fingers and knew, by the feel of his cheek where the stubble of beard did not grow, that he was young. He had a long thin face, she thought, thinned down to the bone, a smooth young forehead. When she pushed back his hair, she felt a lump, a swelling. “He’s had a blow on the head, Grandpa, a fearful blow.”
“But he’s aliving all right. He ain’t easy to kill or he’d been dead afore this.”
The skiff shot ahead with oar and current both to speed it now, for they were far out amidstream, going faster than the river. The moon spread silver on the water and the current broke it into a million dollars and dimes. Then slantwise they shot across into the shadow of the bluff where the light from the Ellen B. came out to meet them, warm and welcoming.
It was another struggle to get him out, dead weight, from skiff to deck and then to Grandpa’s bed. Grandpa spoke sharp in excitement. “Build up the fire, fetch another blanket here quick as you can. Get Grandma’s brick from the back of the closet and put it to heat for his feet.”
Tammy jumped to do his bidding and she thought the flurry she made would surely stay the floater’s soul for a minute if but to see what all the to-do was about. The pine knots with wood atop them caught with a roar that went clean up the stovepipe. Tammy flung open the closet door and knelt down, reaching back into a far corner for the brick. On her knees so, she could pray a powerful prayer, for the lower down one got, the higher the prayer went. “Don’t let him die, God!” she prayed as hard as she could. “Don’t let him die now! He’s come this far safe—it wouldn’t be sensible to take him now.” Her cheek brushed Grandma’s black wool dress that, being black, was too old for her, so she hadn’t cut it down like all the rest. “Grandma, shoo his soul back if it gets that far, shoo it back, please ma’am!” Then her fingers found the brick and she crawled out and put it to heat in the fire.
Grandpa had got the wet clothes off and was piling the cover over him. “This here’s something new to me,” he was mumbling. “Getting home a live one is something I ain’t ever looked for yet. Nothing like it afore in all my born days.” He straightened up. “Nigh on to gone, but he ain’t plumb gone.”
Tammy poured coffee for them both. Grandpa drank his, standing by the bedside, looking down at the floater. “Funny, what a little space lies ‘twixt the quick and the dead. So teeny it would take more than a mikerscope to see it, so weeny a cobweb couldn’t catch it.” He set his cup down in the dishpan.
“Want some more?” Tammy asked, drinking her coffee in small quick sips, keeping her back to the stove so her skirts would dry.
“I don’t want nothing but to lie down in my bed and sleep.” He searched through pockets of the floater’s wet trousers and, finding naught, laid them on the rack beside the stove to steam and dry. “I want nothing but my bed, and the floater’s got it away from me.”
“Go lie on my bed, Grandpa. I’m not sleepy. I’ll sit here and watch and doze a bit maybe in Grandma’s chair.”
He drew a long breath. “That’s a good child, Tammy. You call me if there’s need. I don’t look for a change in him tonight. The great danger’s pneumony—he’s like to die of that
, if we don’t watch out.” He looked back from the doorway at the still face on the pillow. “He comes of gentlefolk, whoever he is—you can tell that by the look of him.”
“Can’t we head off the pneumony somehow, Grandpa? Isn’t there anything against it?”
“Just pray the Lord and keep him warm. I don’t know no more than that except a onion poultice, and it ain’t time for that yet.” He hobbled away through the door by the foot of the bed. Tammy heard the creak of the springs, the thud of one shoe falling, then another and the long slow yielding of the sagged-out springs as he eased himself down to sleep with all his clothes on.
Now she would look at him good—the floater, Grandpa called him, as if he was dead. He wasn’t dead and he wouldn’t be if she could help it. She moved closer to the bed, bending sideways to get her shadow out of the way of her looking. Yes, he looked about the way she’d figgered from the feel of him—lean and hollow-eyed with a longish face. Get that dark stubble of whiskers off him, give him a little meat to his height and he’d come nigh to being a handsome man. His hair was black and one black brow had a kind of quirk at the corner as if he’d got cut there once. She wished she could read his life off his face the way Grandpa said some folks could look at rocks and hills and read the history of the earth. She wished she could go into his mind and read the thoughts that were sleeping there.
She turned away to get the brick from the fire. She wrapped it in a piece of old blanket and placed it at his feet. That would warm if anything could. Then she thought it might be he could take corn liquor now. She poured some in a cup and fed it to him with a spoon. He swallowed and choked and swallowed some more. It might be he’d come to directly and talk to her. It would sure be nice to have somebody talk to her, somebody young like this. She’d been fair aching for somebody to talk back and forth with.
As she watched, his hand moved. It came out from under the covers and dropped limp, hanging down at the side of the bed. Tammy set away her cup quickly and bent breathless over his hand. He seemed all at once more real, more present, now that his hand had stirred. It was strong and bony like all the rest of him, but the strange thing was that he had a wide silver chain on his wrist. Why should a man wear a bracelet? It gave her dismay to see it—was he womanish? She bent lower till she could see the other side. A watch! Of course. There was sense in a man’s wearing a watch. Did it tick? Grandma’s that she used to pin on her front with a gold pin never ticked. Tammy put her ear close and listened. Yes, yes, there it was, just like a clock’s tick only lighter, more secret within itself, yet telling the time as good as if it spoke louder. It broke time into small bits that one could hear, made it real and urgent in each moment of its passing. How would it be to measure one’s life by such small pieces? How could one know how to live by the minute and the hour? Time was large and wide as the sky, one part slipping into the next, unbroken as the flowing of water. She would not like it shattered so.
Tammy out of Time Page 2