by Dot Jackson
We made a rapid exit from that town. Hugh was still sniffling. “Darling,” I told him, “People die every day. It may not be so bad that the first dead person you had to see was somebody we never knew. Like Uncle Hopp.”
His voice quavered. The truth came out. “Mama, I was afraid you’d gone crazy. And I didn’t know what we were going to DO.” Poor little wise child, he was more on target than he knew.
Pet just sighed and said, “Well I only wish we’d gone on and got some of that dinner. I’m about to starve.”
We would get something in Red Bank, I said. We would go into a restaurant and sit down and order real food no matter what it cost. Of course it was in my mind that Red Bank was going to be at least pretty near the end of our line; either we would have someplace to go or we would not. The moment of truth was now a couple of hours away and I was not sure I wanted to hear it.
We went through a couple of little towns, past their cotton mills and through their mill villages, where it seemed like everybody must have had a pot of cabbage or turnips simmering on the back of the stove (I envied them, oh my) and a line of clean wash flapping. Mackey used to say that the saddest thing that could happen to a farmer was to have to give up his land and go to spinning cotton for somebody else. When you worked your own land, he said, nobody stood over you but the Lord. I wondered how these people felt about that. I wondered what really made Mackey walk off his own land. And never go back.
We stopped at a crossroads filling station for gas and we blew ourselves to a nickel each for a dope. The filling station man had a little monkey in a cage and it kept putting its little arms through the bars and looking so pitiful, its eyes following every sip we took. I admit I wouldn’t give it any of mine till I had all I wanted, but of course the children did and it was polite the way it drank.
The country was really rising, now. We were up and down hills and over clear streams, and I wished we could have gotten a good view, from the high places, but there was a heavy haze. It was clouding up ahead. A way off we saw a water tank. As we got closer, the kids made out what it said on it. It said RED BANK.
What I knew about Red Bank I had heard on a Lowcountry porch at night, and on long walks by still black waters, in stories told over a background of creaking rockers, and crickets and seabreezes rustling palmetto fronds. In Mackey’s stories it was a town of breakdown dances, where young men danced each other down and fought with knives, sometimes about some girl. It was a town of chicken fights and horse trading and fiddling and feuds. It was three hundred miles away, and it was pure romance. The Blue Fairy could not have dispensed a more fantastic place.
Now, on this day, in this upcountry, it was a quiet little town, with its own cotton mill, and ranks of nice old two-story houses lined up along Main Street—they had porches, too, and roses grew on their fences, where ladies cut bouquets and talked, and a couple of church spires rose against the shadow of foggy hills.
We rode on down to the courthouse square. The street went around the courthouse block; there was a place to park in front, and we pulled up beside a Model A Ford that said SHERIFF on the door, above a gold star. A chicken was pecking something out of the treads on the right rear tire. Here, for some reason, I felt lots more at ease beside the law than anyplace we’d been.
There were a couple of dogwood trees blooming on what passed for the courthouse lawn. The grass was pretty sparse but narcissus blooms seemed to have come of their own accord, among the sprigs. The courthouse itself was gray stone, with two flights of stone steps leading up to a rounded porch.
Inside there would be the records of Tusquittee County. The births, the deaths, the weddings, the homesteads. Mackey’s folks would be in those files, somewhere.
I sat very still, thinking and looking. The children of course didn’t understand. There was fussing and grumbling in the back seat. I could not tell them that I was looking at this place through Mackey’s eyes, seeing the things he knew and I know he had longed for. Here were the names of people he knew and cared for and remembered and talked about in his exile. Now they named the stores and the doctor and the lawyer: Tatum, Hambright, Spivey and Garner and Brock…
“When are we going to EAT?” Pet said.
It had started to drizzle. Two men in overalls came out and stood on the courthouse porch, talking. I wondered who they were. I wondered if I ran up and told them who I was, would they remember? Maybe they were my people. They were looking at us. The younger one lifted his hat a half an inch, and smiled. The old one—he would be the one who would know—looked on with no expression at all. Just curious. Tears were dribbling on the front of my frock. My stomach growled. Everything I wondered about, all we needed so desperately to know, the answers were right there, in that building, for the asking.
I cranked up and backed out and drove away.
We had passed a decent-looking cafe as we came in, but it was getting late so we would try our luck at the next place. When we came to it, it said EAT in flaky red letters on the side. We opened the screen and stepped over a sleeping dog and went in. The waitress was languidly swatting at flies that were buzzing the windows, trying to get out.
“Whatchall want?” she said.
“What have you got?” I said.
“Soup. And sandridges.”
“What kind of soup?”
“Vegeble and ’mater.”
“What kind of sandridges?”
“Egg.”
We decided on “vegeble” soup and tea and soon went on our way again, cheered somewhat. As I was starting up the car, Hugh leaned over the seat and asked me earnestly what neither of them had dared to ask before.
“Do you know where we’re going, Mama?”
“No,” I said. We listened a minute to that steadfast engine purr. I had no doubt it was tired, like us. I hoped we were near some pleasant sanctuary, for all of us. It was such a trusting machine, and so forgiving. Whatever, the game would soon be over. We were broke, friendless fugitives, homeless in the rain.
“I mean, I don’t know precisely,” I said. “But I’ve got to find out.”
We crossed the railroad between the depot—I bet it was exactly the same as the day Mackey caught the train and left—and some old railroad houses. I always wondered why they painted railroad houses that dreary gray.
And then we came to a sprawling old ramshackle store, right at the end of town: OLLIE M. TROTTER, GENERAL MERCHANDISE. I told the children to sit still, I was going to get directions.
Ollie M. Trotter was slicing sowbelly on a piece of brown paper. He looked up over his little round glasses and nodded howd-do. I looked around and said I would like a few bananas, please. And, um, a can of Vienna sausages. And a box of Uneeda Biscuits. And a nickel’s worth a chocolate drops. They had white specks on them where the paraffin had come through but they would do to keep peace.
There was a woman sitting in a straight chair, behind the cloth shelf, knitting. She didn’t say anything, but she was looking. I didn’t want to stare back but I noticed she was so interested her hands were frozen in mid-stitch. I told the man to put in some sardines, too, I knew the kids would say peww but we had to have supplies in case of disaster.
“Y’picked a turrable day for a joy-ride,” Ollie said. Which of course meant what in the world were we doing here. “The sky looks to me like they’s a-comin’ a cloud-bust.”
My heart was in a spasm. My knees shook. “We’re on our way to see my folks,” I said.
“Well, I hope they’re here close by,” he said. There was a lapse while he bagged the stuff and took the money and made change. And then he could stand it no longer. “Who are they?”
The woman leaned forward, not to miss it.
“The Steeles,” I said.
The woman drew a little jab of breath.
“The Steeles?” Ollie asked. He was leaning across the counter, now, with his eyebrows puckered together in a frown, studying my pores. “Ben Steele?”
“Do you know him?” I said. I
was squeezing those bananas to a mush against my chest.
The rain was drumming now on the store’s tin roof, while he considered. It was a silly thing I had asked. I knew Ben Ivan Steele was so old he was probably dead. I didn’t know how I could have hoped otherwise.
“I know him,” Ollie said. And he turned to the side, and spit a great long brown pttuuii into some vessel behind the counter. “’Course I know him.”
“What’s the quickest way to his place from here?” I asked, putting on like I knew where his place was supposed to be.
“Well,” he said, “ain’t no good way from here. This road rightchere’ll take ye up to the Forks, of course…”
“Caney Forks?” I said.
“That’s right. But now, hit ain’t much of a road, for a little ways up close to the river. They’ve got it all tore up, a-workin on a new bridge. But don’t mind, just go slow, and keep a-goin’ straight. They’s some bad little old roads cuts off up-pair, and you don’t want none ol’ them, eh, law, and it a-fixin’ to get dark early…”
“How far you reckon it is?”
Ollie said, “Oh, abody could WALK it in half a day’s time. But the way you’ve got to drive, why, hmmm, it’s twenty-five mile, I guess. You’ll get there by good dark, just mind, keep ’er straight.”
I thanked him. I wanted to hug him. I was already outside the screen, in the rain, when he hollered at me, “What did ye say you was to Ben Steele?”
I hollered back, “His granddaughter.” But I doubted he heard me.
So we were off again, and before the children could ask, I said, “We’re nearly there.” They were into the chocolate drops. Directly I looked back in the mirror and they were both asleep.
I didn’t quite know why, but I was ecstatically happy. We were just humming along, and I was singing very soft, just for myself, “The squire he come a-ridin’ home, inquirin’ for his lay-a-dee, And the an-swer that they made to him was, ‘She’s gone with the Black Jack Day-vee, That rag-tag Gypsy, Day-veee…’”
I don’t know where that came from, it sure wasn’t one of my mother’s songs. Maybe Camp’s, but it seemed like one of Mackey’s. You know, things from very long ago sometimes just bubble to the surface like that.
Ollie was right. A mile or so out, the road began to get bad. It was getting real steep, for one thing, climbing and twisting. And it was wet, and just gravel, no tar. In the woods it was gloomy and I fumbled around again to find the lights. I guessed in time I would learn this car. I learned right fast that when you climb you shift gears; a couple of times it died and rolled back. I could hear Uncle Camp groaning, “Th’ow in de clutch, missy, th’ow in de clutch.”
One thing, though, the threat of the law, or anything that Foots might do, I felt was safely left behind. To tell the truth I hadn’t thought about what Foots was doing or any old troubles all evening. By the map, we had not more than crossed the state. But in my mind I had crossed continents and seas; I could not go back. It did weigh on me now that I better be thinking ahead. I better be thinking what in the world I was going to tell my people when I just popped in on them after thirty years. I wished I’d had the nerve to come out and ask Ollie about them, who was still alive and all. I guess he’d have thought I was plain crazy—who ignores her family her very whole life? Good grief, that ugly Bertha Hopp had more concern for her people than I did. Here Lord knows how many of mine had died when I didn’t even know that they had lived.
Ben Ivan Steele, my grandpa, I still had him. I didn’t know about my grandma. Her name was Daisy McAllister. Mackey was named for her folks. But whoever of them lived, I would make it up to them. I didn’t know how I would get around the truth that I had made no attempt to find them. I could hardly say, “Well, I’m sorry but my mother was sure you all lived on bootleg whiskey and never wore shoes. She was afraid if she had anything to do with you at all you might come down and be tacky, and spoil her reputation and my chances.”
Somehow I knew they wouldn’t care. They were old; maybe I could look after them. We would be an unexpected gift to each other. I hoped the shock would not kill them in the hour of our reunion.
I don’t know why it didn’t strike me strange that they had made no effort to contact me. I just never thought about it then.
There were terrible ruts and mudholes in the road, where culverts were being laid and machinery had traveled. Then we came around a bend, and into a clearing. I never forgot that eerie yellow-gray light, it was so scary. And then there was the river. It was huge, just rolling, yellow with silt. There was a makeshift plank bridge across it, so low the water was licking at the boards, washing across. Oh, Father, I said. Not me! Not these children!
I could see well enough not to try to turn around there. It was a tormented quagmire of tracks and thrown-up mud and puddles. The prudent thing, it seemed, was to back up a way and turn around in a better spot and try to find the road. Somehow I had got off wrong. This was not the road to Caney Forks.
I backed up the hill and of course the wheels spun and the thing wouldn’t go but so far before it would just dig in and slide and go nowhere but sideways. I was really panicky. Something told me rock it !—and I did—low and reverse, low and reverse. And finally it backed a few more feet and spun sideways and turned halfway around.
In that pose, the headlights picked up another road. Or, I thought, that IS the road. I had just missed this curve. We were on our way again. That bumping and grinding had jostled the sleepers around and Hugh raised up and said, “Where are we?”
“We’re doing fine,” I said, “this is just a bumpy old road. You can go back to sleep.” And he did.
The road of course was still awful. It was running now beside the river, and the river sent up a mist that joined the rain to make it just impossible to see anything more than the ruts ahead, twisting around muddy banks and out of sight. I wondered how far we’d come, it seemed like a thousand miles, and how long we’d be to Caney Forks, at two miles an hour.
And then we came to a kind of level place, clear with pasture on one side, and up the road, in the fog, there was an old man leading a cow. Oh, praise God, a human. We bumped on up beside him. “Mister,” I said, “You don’t know how glad I am to see you. Can you tell me how far we are from the Steeles’?” I figured this must be real close to Caney Forks.
He turned around and looked at us. He had a long white beard and a long bony face; he was chewing tobacco and the juice made a channel in his whiskers. He came over to the car and peered in at me, with his chin working up and down, like he couldn’t quite take in what it was he saw. And then whatever it was, I guess he believed it. His head jerked backwards, sort of sidewise, and his mouth fell open, and he had this look of horror in his eyes. And he took off running like a turkey up the field, dragging his poor old cow. And he never had answered me one word.
Now, I’ll tell you, I had the creeps. Here we were, in this weather, out in nowhere with nothing but crazy people, and night was really closing in. There was nothing to do but drive on.
We were climbing again, back into the woods. And it seemed like the road was getting much worse. It was just old ruts with saplings growing between them that scraped the bottom of the car. There were rocks in the road as big as a goods box.
A couple of times we got stuck in mud and had to rock out. My ears were popping. I thought about all those patches on that tire and couldn’t believe how it was taking all this, when sometimes the whole car would shudder.
The wind began to shriek. The sky fairly sizzled with lightning, and the thunder rumbled over us as though we were in a deep dark cave. For a while the rain was so hard I couldn’t see a thing so I just stopped, and waited an hour or two, I was so tired but too terrified to sleep.
And then the rain eased up, and I felt encouraged, and started up again. It was some kind of miracle, I knew, that the car had not drowned out or shaken to pieces.
We crept along, still climbing. Once a boulder as big as a bushel bounced down the bank
in front of us and rolled across the road and out of the lights, into some deep unknown. I was shaking worse than the car, clinging to the wheel like grim death.
And then we started coming down. By leaps and bounds. I guess something had happened to the brakes, they didn’t help at all. The laurels whizzed by. I prayed for a good mudhole to slow us down. I would have settled for a good tree to run into but there was nothing in the headlights but mud bank and black chasm. Dangling briers and switches slapped at us. Something raked the top of the car and tore a big hole and rain splattered in on my head. There was a fearful roaring now, somewhere close beside us. Oh, I wished I could stop and wait it out till day. But we were moving on, for good or ill.
There did come a sort of leveling off, and we slowed down. All was not lost—there was a bridge ahead of us, another human sign. When the front wheels hit the planks, there was a hair-raising crunch and splintering, and we were falling and crashing and splashing, and the lights bounced, and died, and over that awful roar the children screamed. I could hear somebody real far away, screaming, “Oh God! Oh God!” And it was me.
It was blacker than a pit. The water rushed over my feet; I could hear the children vaguely, they were screeching “Mama! Mama! You drove us in the water!” But I couldn’t see them, couldn’t see anything at all, and it took me forever to get from under the steering wheel and over into the back seat. And I felt their panicky arms and legs wiggling and knew they were alive.
The front end had got the worst. The car was nose down; water came in the back but the seat was dry. I got my arms around the kids and we crouched there in a huddle while the water pounded on the wreck, jiggling it like a bobber in a pond. We were moving sideways, shifting, flamming, being battered. It was like we were in a flimsy casket being bumped along in a reckless hearse. There was nothing but blackness. We could see nothing, and hear nothing but that hideous roar. We could barely hear each other pray.