Tammy out of Time

by Cid Ricketts Sumner

  “He told me it—I already got it by heart, Grandpa.”

  “Well, you take this anyway, so’s you don’t get lost. You can hitch your way—only mind they’re good people you get in the car with.”

  Tammy nodded, her head dizzy with the dividing of her thoughts. Her mind was a fire, fresh-kindled with the heavy smoke amourning for Grandpa’s going to jail, and the quick bright flames leaping for herself and her going. “I’ll be careful, Grandpa. Don’t you worry about me.”

  “Get me a safety pin now and a scrap of stout cloth.” He bent down by slow degrees and took off his shoe. By the time she had what he wanted, he’d taken some money from the inside of it. He made a little bag of the cloth and showed her how to sew it and to fasten it with the pin inside her dress, with the bills hidden away. “One more thing I want you to know, honey. I got a little money put away for you. I tell you so’s you can get it if you need it. It’s too much to be carrying round. You mind the tomb that’s above-ground?” He beckoned her close so he could whisper.

  “You mean Celeste that died on Christmas Day?”

  “That’s it. I dug me a little hiding place down under the head of it. In a tin can. I got the reward moneys there. But don’t you touch it less’n you need it bad.”

  “All right, Grandpa.”

  “Now you go call the men to come in. I see you got plenty for company.”

  “To dinner?” Tammy drew back. She shook back her hair and her eyes flashed. “No, no, Grandpa! I’d sooner give them pizen than my good gumbo when they’re waiting to take you to jail. Oh, no, not if they’s starving.”

  “That’s enough of that,” Grandpa said, sharp and quick. “What does the Bible say about your enemies? Besides, they’s only doing their duty like I was doing mine, making corn liquor in the swamp. You go this minute and call them in and be ashamed of yourself for grudging them a meal.”

  Tammy went with bowed head. She beckoned and halloed, and men came in. But she wouldn’t sit down with them. Nobody could make her do that and she reckoned Grandpa knew better than to try. She served them and then she went to her room to pack her a gunny sack of clothes to take with her. She put in three cotton dresses and her shoes and the new dress, folded carefully so it wouldn’t wrinkle, and she put in her little box of paint that Gladys had given her long ago. Somehow she’d manage to fix up and change to her nice dress before she got there, so as not to shame Pete. Then she went in and kept filling up the men’s plates with gumbo because the fat one ‘lowed he’d never eaten better, and the other one stowed it away like he was starving. She couldn’t swallow a bite herself—it would stick in her throat for sure, so she busied herself making the kitchen neat for leaving.

  Grandpa talked along like always. It was a wonder how he could do it. He didn’t eat too hearty—Tammy couldn’t help but notice that. When they’d finished, afore they could say a word, he opened the Bible and read the Ninety-first Psalm. They fidgeted a bit, but they couldn’t be disrespectful to the Bible, no more than they could do a thing but get down on their knees when Grandpa said, “Let us pray.” Tammy, kneeling by the wood box, thought that if Grandpa had a mind to, he could keep them all day on their knees, because who would dare interrupt anybody talking to God?

  Grandpa was strong on praying, and he never prayed better. When he got to working up to the finish, you’d have thought God was bending down with his ear right on the edge of the bluff or even atop the stovepipe. “O Lord,” he prayed, with his voice rising and falling the way it did when he got going good, “forgive us our sins, and we’re a sinful lot! Wipe out the meanness out of our souls, O Lord, for we’re powerful mean, some of us more than others! Let us feel brotherly love amongst us, knowing some sin one way and some another, each according to his lights. And if an old man, nigh on to fourscore years and soon cut off, if an old man that’s spent his life laboring in the vineyard of the Lord, has gone and let his foot slip in the trampling out of the grapes, don’t hold it against him, Lord! Be mindful of how the sinfulness of the sin depends on the spirit what you goes and does it in, and recollect in the judging at that final bar that stands above all earthly courts, recollect, O Lord, how the water was once changed into wine, the only difference between then and now being some fool law they made up in Jackson! Now go with us, Lord, in all our ways, however devious they may be, and some of them are mighty devious, especially them that take away the God-given freedom from another human soul and put a free spirit behind prison bars! Forgive them, Lord, and let the sin they do be writ lightly in the book of deeds and misdoings! Amen.”

  One man kept his chin tucked down in the khaki collar of his shirt and never said a word as he got to his feet and shuffled toward the door. The other one, the fat one with three plates of good gumbo in him, had a redness over his face and neck and he had to swallow his feelings before he spoke.

  “It sure goes against the grain with me, Brother Dinwoodie, running you in like this, you being a preacher and all,” he said.

  “You got to do your bounden duty, brother,” Grandpa told him, gathering up what things he wanted to take with him and not for-getting his Bible. “I’d be a poor preacher if I asked you to do other than your duty.”

  Tammy, emptying the pot and kettle and turning them upside down so they wouldn’t rust, felt an easing spread through her. She’d begun to feel better when Grandpa read about not being afraid, and the angels having charge over thee, and now she was filling plumb up with comfort. Nobody was going to hurt Grandpa, no matter where they took him. Bars couldn’t jail a free spirit. And look how humble and apologizing he’d got these men in no time at all—hell’s bells, they’d be waiting on him before they got to town! And for a fact, they were offering to help him nail up the Ellen B. right now.

  It was strange, having everything get dark as the board blinds closed across the windows. When she took a last look around her room she could not see herself in the blurred little mirror on the wall. All the things in her room and in the kitchen, as she went through, were wrapped in a noontime darkness, like a package covered up and put away.

  Nan could just go wild, Grandpa said. This time of year she’d find plenty to eat, and the same with the chickens. He lengthened the hawser where it was tied round the hackberry tree so that with the going-down of the river the Ellen B. would not be left aground or hung up or anything. Tammy measured the length of time he figgered on being gone by the length of rope he let out. It would be a long time.

  Grandpa put a padlock on the door, he gave Tammy one key and put the other in his pocket. Then he kissed her good-by and she held tight onto him for a moment, feeling his cheek wet against hers, feeling all hollow inside herself with the strangeness of what was happening.

  “Now take your sack and get ashore, honey.”

  Tammy did as he said and she went as far as the hackberry tree before she looked back. They were helping Grandpa down into the motorboat, giving him a hand while the engine roared loud, champing to go. Grandpa was going to be all right and she didn’t know what-for she had to have such a choky feeling in her throat. It was maybe just leaving everything she was used to. She turned then and went on up the bluff, blinking hard and shifting the sack on her shoulder so her shoes and her hairbrush wouldn’t dig into her back. She’d put on her shoes afore she got there, when she changed her clothes.

  At the top of the bluff she stopped for one last look, waving to Grandpa, far out on the river, going downstream. He waved back and she went on down the long slope on the other side. Nan came bounding out of the bushes and followed as far as the log across the bayou. The bayou water was nigh to the beech log now, pushing inland, spreading out in all the low places with a steady current. Maybe Nan was afeard of it. Anyway, she just stood there looking across with a lost, sad look in her eyes, as if she knew she was being left. Then she started nibbling at some tender leaves and Tammy tiptoed easy round the turn in the path and got away from her.

  6.

  THE path through the swamp was no more
than a vague notion of a path, for Grandpa was the only one who ever went along it. In the low places where the water had backed up from the bayou, Tammy had to find a log to cross over by. Other places she could jump. The leaves made a roof to the swamp, green and cool. Grapevines rose to the tops of tall bay trees and came down again. Once Tammy stopped to swing where the vine looped low at the edge of black water. It was just right for a swing. She held tight with both hands, sitting in the loop. She walked ‘way back and took a quick run forward, lifting her feet. Out she swung, over the still deep water, far, far out. Looking down, she saw below her the wavering line where a moccasin moved, frightened by her shadow. She went out again, stiffening her legs and leaning back to look up and see the leaves spread out like lace to dry on the roof of the swamp. Oh, it was a fair world here in the cool, damp swamp and she’d miss the sight and smell of it when she got out on the dry, warm land! She jumped down then, caught up her sack and ran a way to make up for the time’ she had lost.

  At the edge of the swamp, Tammy stood in the shade of a tall magnolia tree and looked up and down the road. It was hot and dusty with the sun shining straight down upon it. Not a car in sight. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to walk a way. Might work some of the excitement out of her. She shifted her sack and was mounting the bank where the road was built up against the backing-up of the bayou, when she heard the thud of hoofs and Nan came bounding to her side.

  Oh, what a bother! “Go home, go home,” Tammy cried, fanning her skirt and stamping her foot. But Nan would go only a little way, then stand and look as if bewildered, wondering why this day she was scolded instead of praised for her faithful following. Every time Tammy started off, she came slowly after her.

  “Oh, Nan, why do you do so?” Tammy cried, close to tears with pure vexation. “I wish I’d never spent weeks training you to follow like a dog!” She caught up a little stick and struck at her, but Nan only planted her feet firm and turned dark, reproachful eyes. Tammy threw down the stick and gave up. Why not take her along? There was land enough, Pete had said, and it would save her from arriving empty-handed, like a beggar. She bent and scratched Nan between the ears and petted her, begging her pardon for the scolding. “Come along then, and mind your manners.”

  It was good, having company along the lonely road. Nan trotted at her heels, stopping only occasionally for a nibble of grass and then bounding to catch up. Now and then, when a car went by, coming or going, Tammy stood off the road to look at it, waiting for the dust to settle before she went on. Once a shiny black car with boxes piled high on the back seat slowed down and the driver leaned out. “Want a ride?” he called.

  “I’d be much obliged.” Tammy ran to get in. With her hand on the door, she turned. “Here, Nan, hurry up! Come quick, we’re going to get a ride.”

  The man said, “Hey, I don’t want any damn goat in my car! What do you have to have a goat for?”

  Tammy drew back. “It’s my goat and a mighty nice one, too, I’d have you know!”

  “You can have her, sister.” He drove on with a jerk and a whirl of dust.

  The next car that slowed down had an old man and an old woman in it, nice-looking folks and gentle-spoken. But they said with dismay, when Nan came alongside, “Oh, dear, no, not the goat. Sorry.” And off they went, too.

  At first it did not trouble Tammy that Nan kept her from catching a ride. She had all the long afternoon to get where she was going, and Pete had said it was not far. She was a good walker, and walking she had time to savor being out in the world. She felt like all the younger sons in the fairy stories Grandma used to tell; she was like Dick Whittington with his cat—only she had a goat. She was a free spirit roaming; she was a pilgrim on a pilgrimage.

  When she came out on the paved highway, the cars went by faster and faster. They made the progress of her steps small and slow and she began to have the feeling that she was going round and round on a treadmill, getting nowhere. The earth had a stillness to it, a fixity. It gave her a queer sensation of helplessness, of being bound. The earth was not like the river, that kept going and changing all the time. Pete had been wrong, saying it wasn’t far to his place. He must have been measuring distance by the measure of a car’s speed and power, not by the placing of one foot before the other and the creeping of the shadows across the road as the sun went down. Her feet began to hurt from the stones of the gravel at the road’s edge. She wished she had four feet like Nan to spread her weight on.

  It was getting on toward first dark and she had left the highway by the sign that was marked on her map, when an open truck went by. Steam was pouring from its engine and the motor labored at its task. On the hill ahead, it sputtered and gave up altogether. A man and a woman were on the high front seat and children sat in the open back part.

  A little boy with a bucket in his hand jumped down from the truck and came running down the hill toward Tammy. He gave a shy glance, stared at Nan a second, then went leaping down the bank to where a little stream ran between muddy sides. Coming back with the brimming bucket, he fell in beside her.

  “Where you bound for?” he asked. But when she began to tell him how far she’d come and how far she was going, he broke in to say, “If you think that’s a fur piece, we’re riding furtherer than that. Way up to Tishomingo.”

  “Tishomingo—it has a far sound.”

  “Mammy’s got word her ma’s sick and got a doctor, fixing to die, and she better hurry if she aims to see her afore she’s laid out to be buried. We’re going to ride all night.”

  When they came abreast of the truck, Tammy stopped to watch how the man watered his engine, giving it small drinks to gulp and choke on. He looked round at her and said, “Gotta go slow or she’ll bust wide open and then where’d we be?”

  The little boy was back in the truck, whispering to his mother. “Sure she can, if she’s a mind to. I’ll ax her.” She leaned down and called to Tammy, “Want to ride, miss? You look plumb tuckered out.”

  “I wisht I could. I sure do wish I could. But I got my little goat and——”

  “That’s all right. The chillen is adying to play with her. Pa, help the little thing in.”

  Tammy felt at home with them. Landfolk, but they were like shanty-boat people, goodhearted and kindly. She showed them her map and they figgered they knew just where to let her off. They shared their supper with her while the engine cooled and rested and Tammy milked some milk into a tin cup for the children. There wasn’t much to eat so Tammy ate sparingly, hungry though she was. There wasn’t much milk either because Nan was tired, or maybe she just just held it up, feeling strange.

  When the truck started on again at last, Tammy caught tight to the side and clung fast. The children laughed and asked if she hadn’t ever been in a truck before. She shook her head, afeard her teeth would shake out if she opened her mouth. The headlights cut out a path from the darkness that had come on thick now, and the wind of their going blew her hair straight out behind her. It was a wonder it didn’t blow clean off and leave her bald-headed. It made her recollect what Grandpa had read this morning about the terror that flieth by night. This was it, all right. But the Bible said not to be afraid. She tried not to be afraid, and just trying gave her an easing through her tight muscles.

  The children stretched out on the old quilts on the bottom of the truck, giggling together, with Nan pulled down to lie beside them. They didn’t even look round to see the lighted-up town. Tammy tried to see it but they went through so fast there was just a flash of lights and a swish of other cars and a blasting of horns, and then they were out on the dark road again. Tammy lay down beside the children but whenever she started to doze, she woke with a jerk and a jump.

  Then the truck’s stopping roused her. They’d come to a fork in the road and the man said, “Here’s the sign where you turn off.” He got out and helped her down, and Nan too, past the sleeping children. He gave her a piece of rope to fasten round Nan’s neck so she wouldn’t stray in the dark.

  “Like
as not you’ll catch another ride afore long,” the woman called down with kindness, when Tammy thanked them for the lift.

  “It don’t look like you got far to go now, judging by your map,” the man told her.

  Tammy looked after the truck till its red back light was lost in the night. She’d never know if they got there in time for the woman to see her ma—and they’d never know if she got to Pete’s place. Nothing left of their meeting but the feel of kindness done and kindness taken.

  No cars were traveling by the fork Tammy took, and the road was doubly lonesome for her having had company a little way. Oh, but she was glad now that Nan had come along! Her little feet made a cheerful, homey sound on the hard-packed road. After a while there came a lightening of the sky and a late, lopsided moon began to rise over an open field. It was like having an old friend come out to journey with her. But nothing could shorten the distance that seemed to stretch endlessly ahead, nor could anything ease the growing weariness of body and limb, or lighten the load over her shoulder. She might have been picking up stones and adding them to her sack, the way it got heavier and heavier.

  Then there were voices ahead and wide laughter, with no boundaries to it. The words too had no edges, blending one with the other. At the curve of the road ahead, shapes appeared, shapes with no faces. It was a fearsome sight, but Tammy went on, bold-seeming for all her panic within. Then suddenly she knew why there were no faces—there were Negroes coming toward her, their faces merging with the night.

  “Good evening,” she said as they came abreast.

  They had hushed their noise as if in wonder at seeing her alone on the road with a goat in the middle of the night, or maybe past the middle for all she knew. “Evenin’, ma’am,” the women said, and the men’s greeting was a deeper rumble, but all full of courtesy and respect. Tammy knew little of Negroes, having seen them only in the distance, darkening the decks of passing boats. She had heard their mellow singing as a barge went by. She knew only that they were humans too, and she was glad to see them in the road. She wanted to delay their going. “Is it far to the Brent place, called Brenton Hall?”