She decided since this was their first visit, she should add additional candles, out on the porch and down the trail a bit, get them in the mood as they approached the house.
Mama Tuway gathered up more candles out of her fortune-telling drawer and walked out to the front porch, then on out the trail. As she placed the last candle on a low hanging tree branch draped in Spanish moss swaying in the breeze, she heard the long eerie whistle of the night train approaching the river trestle.
CHAPTER 7
THEIR train arrived at Lower Peach Tree in the dead of night. One dim light hanging from a long wire on the station platform was their only welcome. The station itself was locked tight. Other passengers who got off with them had rides waiting in the darkness just beyond the reach of the light. John saw no one. He heard only the sound of a few cars and what he suspected to be a mule-drawn wagon or two leaving as travelers were picked up and carted off.
Aunt Nelda had not noticed any of this, she had been so busy making sure their bags and boxes were unloaded and accounted for.
The train hissed and smoked and clanged, and pulled out of the station, leaving only a few wisps of steam vanishing in the night air. She was still checking boxes and bags, trunks and suitcases. He sat on the edge of a trunk, watching the wedge of light cast by the hanging bulb move back and forth with the slightest breeze. There were no porters, no people left, no one to pick them up.
Finally, Aunt Nelda disengaged from her things enough to see this. Then she took studied interest in the business of re-counting, mumbling to herself all the while. “That’s just like Luther. I wrote him three times we would be comin’ today.” She kept her eyes on the boxes, never letting them stray to John. She took a small list from her purse.
“Five, the tablecloths; six, the kitchen utensils. He probably never even went to the post office to get the mail. Now what does he think we’re supposed to do?
“Seven, the trunk with John’s clothes. Eight is the china. We can’t leave our valuables.” She glanced out into the dark. For the first time, she looked at the boy. “I thought for sure he would borrow a truck and meet us here. I just know he wants to see all the things we have.”
Just then, two lights appeared far off down the road, coming on slowly. She crossed her arms and rubbed them in relief. “There he is. I told you.”
Every time the car hit a bump, its lights would flash up into the big moss-covered oaks that lined the road up to the station. Tree frogs, which had provided the only sound, were temporarily silenced. As it came closer, they could see that the light belonged to a red Packard. The colored man who was driving cut off the engine and got out.
“The Judge told me to come on back here and see if y’all needed a ride. Mrs. Vance was noticin’ y’all standin’ here when I come to pick’m up. The Judge say, ‘Go back there, Cal, and see if you can give them folks a hand.’ So here I am.” He stood there smiling, not looking at Aunt Nelda, but staring at all of her things.
Aunt Nelda began to straighten up the boxes stacked in front of her. “Well, I . . . I know Mr. Spraig will be along any minute. I don’t think we’ll need your help, Cal. We can manage just fine, can’t we, John honey?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, knowing it was not true.
The colored man turned to go. Just as he was opening the car door, Aunt Nelda began to laugh her high, nervous laugh. “Oh now wouldn’t it be a joke on Luther if we just up and got a ride with Cal here, and Luther—I mean Mr. Spraig—on his way down here to pick us up. It would just serve him right, don’t you think?” She laughed again, bit her lip, and then called to Cal. “Now Cal, we’ll just take you up on that offer from the Judge.”
She turned to the boy. “John, you start helpin’ Cal load our things.” She began telling Cal what to do, all the while talking loudly so that he and John would be sure to see her reasoning.
“Luther will be so upset that he missed us. Well, it just serves him right. Women just have to keep their men guessin’, you know.”
This rationale was completely lost on the boy, having never had a father to remember or a mother who would deign such an attitude. Cal pretended not to take note.
All their belongings were finally pushed and shoved into some part of the car. A rope tied down the trunk. The backseat was loaded with bags and boxes on either side of Aunt Nelda. John was assigned to the front seat with Cal. Cal started the engine and drove slowly out of the train station. As they drove through what seemed to be a small town, the night breeze from the opened windows closed around them like a damp cloth. John could only imagine what lay in the shadowy outlines of the darkened buildings they passed. Out on what appeared to be a main highway, the one stoplight in town glowed a steady yellow. Cal paused at the light.
“Now Mrs. Spraig,” he said, “I done forgot which is your house in Mill Town. Seein’ as how they all looks alike, you gonna have to tell me where to go when I gets there.”
“We no longer reside in Mill Town, Cal,” Aunt Nelda said in a testy voice. “My husband has had a business offer that required us to change residence. Turn left right here and keep going until you come to the first left.”
“The first left? Ain’t nothin’ out there but one of them Rawlston houses,” Cal said. “My cousin Lowery worked on shares out there ’fore he went on up north year before last. That ain’t the house you mean, is it?”
“Certainly we are not stayin’ in the house your cousin stayed in. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s another one on that same road.”
Cal shook his head. “Well, that’s the only one I knows about. Bound to be the—”
“Never you mind, Cal. Just drive on and keep your mind on what it is you’re doing.”
They drove on away from town, no one saying a word.
In a mile or so, the car came to a dirt road that had so many ruts, the Packard, with its heavy load, was hard-pressed to make it through. John held tight to the window frame and looked out into the intermittent moonlight, to see an old broken-down fence on either side of the road that led up a rise and into a group of trees. As they approached, he could see, underneath the trees, the outline of a house. There were no lights anywhere. It looked, in the dark, like some black hole. When the lights from the Packard came around to shine on it, the boy caught his breath without knowing. It was like no house he had ever seen white people live in. This was a mistake. They would drive past this place and go on down the road to the main house.
Feeble steps led up to a porch that was in the middle of the house. Old shutters hung lopsided from the two front windows. A truck with peeling red paint sat to one side near a shed. Two cats sleeping on the porch raised their heads to watch them approach.
“It’s—it’s a dogtrot house.” He hadn’t even realized he had said it. He was still taking in the sight.
Aunt Nelda took no notice of this reality. Her language, however, seemed to change to adjust to the environment. “Cal, turn them lights ’way from the house. That’s all I need, to wake up everybody while I’m tryin’ to sort out just what I’m gonna to do with my things.” She turned to John. “Our things.” She laughed nervously.
“You’ve never been to the country before, have you?” She raised her hands and hunched her shoulders. “Only temporary, of course, until Mr. Spraig makes a good crop this year, and then we’re on our way to . . .” Her voice trailed off into another thought. “Well, get on out. We got work to do.” She put her mind to gathering shopping bags. “Yes, only temporary,” she said to herself.
“Now get on out here like I said and start helpin’ Cal to unload. In the country, you pull your own weight. That’s something you got to learn right off the bat. No more coddlin’. I always did tell your momma she went too easy on you.”
John got out of the car, trying not to look at the house. He started stacking things on the porch, following Cal’s lead. The night was still hot. Mosquitoes buzzed in his ear and bit at his legs. Sweat and dust covered his ankles and shoes. He was wringing wet and tired. He
slapped at a mosquito and smeared the blood it left onto his shirt. He almost threw a box on the porch. He screamed at his mother, his head pounding. She lives in a dogtrot house. You can see that, can’t you?
Still no one seemed to stir inside the house. Even the cats, on recognizing Aunt Nelda, had ambled off the porch and found sleeping space on the dirt beneath the foundation, which was raised off the ground several feet by stacks of river rocks placed at its corners.
“Good luck, boy,” Cal half-whispered as he put the last trunk on the porch. He turned and hurried to the car, afraid she might find more chores for him. Rolls of dust followed his two lights down the road toward the highway.
“What did he say to you?” Aunt Nelda snapped.
“He said, ‘Good luck.’”
“Some people can be just too smart for their own good.” She made a face and shook her head. “Just because he works for the Judge, he thinks he’s in high cotton. The very idea,” she muttered. “His cousin Lowery indeed.”
Aunt Nelda straightened up and shook herself loose from the notion. “Now let’s see. Home at last, with everything intact. We’ll just leave things here on the porch and deal with it in the morning, in plenty of daylight.
“Now John,” she said, “let’s put you on a cot in Little Luther’s room for tonight and work out something better for the future.”
She went in the door on the left side of the dogtrot and came back with two quilts that were old and faded from use.
“I’m going to sleep on that?”
She didn’t hear the ridicule in his voice and patted the quilts lovingly. “Yes, I made them up myself. One is Wedding Rings and this here one is Tulips.
“You follow on behind me. We don’t want to disturb Little Luther. He’s almost as bad as his daddy when he gets woke up out of a sound sleep.”
“Aunt Nelda, I thought I might wash my hands and face before I go to bed,” he whispered. “Mother always made me.”
“Oh ain’t you a lucky boy.” She laughed in a whisper, her hand on the door latch. “We don’t do that down here. I know how little boys hate to take baths. Besides, at this time of night, you can’t hardly see to draw water from the pump nohow. So come on.”
He followed her into the room on the right side of the porch. It was dark, but she found a place on the floor, laid out the quilts, and motioned for him to lie down.
Then she quickly backed out of the room and left him alone.
He sat on the quilts, trying to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, but they would not. It was as if he were in the deepest, blackest cave. He felt around for his shoes and untied the laces.
Maybe this was like camping and tomorrow they would move into a real house. Or maybe tomorrow he would wake up and Aunt Nelda’s children would be standing around him, smiling down at him. He heard Little Luther’s steady breathing.
He was too tired to cry or even call up her name. He fell asleep.
CHAPTER 8
HEY, you think you can sleep all day?” Little Luther kicked at the quilts. John roused himself from sleep to the sound of Little Luther striking a match. He lifted the glass off a kerosene lamp to light the wick. Then Little Luther stood over John, holding the lamp to get a better look at what lay beneath the covers. “You don’t look much like a football player. Ma said you was a football player.” He put the lamp on a rough wooden dresser that seemed to be the only piece of furniture in the room other than Little Luther’s bed. He began fastening the shoulder strap to his overalls, still watching John, who lay on his back, holding a piece of quilt over his bare chest. John had been so hot in the night that he had taken off his shirt and laid it neatly on the floor beside him. Now he felt a chill as he watched the person standing before him. A big wide head with hair so short, he almost looked bald. Not fat, just short and solid, with thick arms and fingers, feet like roots growing from one of the water oaks he had seen from the train window.
Little Luther turned around to pick up one of his shoes. “Just goes to show you women ain’t got a lick of sense when it comes to ordinary things.” He sat down on the bed and propped one foot on the bedcovers to lace up his shoe. John could see his eyes now. They were blue and far apart.
“What are you starin’ at?” Little Luther looked up from his lacing. “Ain’t you ever seen work boots before?”
“You’re going to get the bedcovers dirty putting your muddy shoes on them.”
Little Luther set the first boot on the floor and raised up the second boot to start lacing it. “Looks to me like what we got here is a shithead pantywaist. Pa, he said he thought you would be soft as a turd. You probably ain’t done a good day’s work in your life.” He finished lacing and stomped both feet on the floor as he got up.
“We’re gonna be workin’ down in the swamp field, so you better wear shoes. I don’t like to wear’m, neither, but if you don’t, you’ll get worms.” He turned to open the door to the outside breezeway. “You better get up and get dressed or Pa’ll be on you, and then you can’t work, shoes or no.” The door slammed behind him.
John began unfolding his shirt. He would put this on temporarily until he had unpacked his other clothes. He had begun sifting through the quilts to find his shoes and socks when he heard Uncle Luther.
His voice was hoarse, like a man who had a bad cold or a bad night.
“Come on out here and get somethin’ to eat. We ain’t got all day.”
John hopped along as he pulled on his shoes. He felt around for the doorknob before he could open it to the dark morning. Faint light shone from the door on the other side of the dogtrot. John stumbled on an uneven floorboard as he edged closer. The rusty screen door gave a blurred picture of what lay ahead. He could see two figures sitting around what he thought was a picnic table.
He eased open the screen door just enough to step inside. The voice he had heard sat at the far end of the table. Light from the coal-oil lantern reflected off Uncle Luther’s face, then danced into the shadows where Aunt Nelda stood over a woodstove, frying bacon. The bacon smell mixed with an odor of old wood walls, damp and decaying.
Uncle Luther looked up from eating long enough to nod his head. Only Aunt Nelda’s voice came out of the half dark, saying what he was coming to expect of her.
Weren’t we all glad to be home and one big happy family and didn’t it look like it was going to be a beautiful day and, oh my, what a train ride they’d had coming home and just wait till you saw all her things. She said all this as she was guiding him to a sitting place across the table from Little Luther.
He had practiced in his mind thousands of times the ritual of this introduction, standing, shaking hands, saying, “I’m glad to meet you.” Instead, he sat with his head down, studying the grain of the wood boards in the tabletop.
She brought a plate of bacon, eggs, and grits. He decided that now was not the time to tell her he didn’t care for grits. He would inform her of this at some more appropriate time. “Thank you, Aunt Nelda. Would you please pass me the salt, Little Luther,” he said. He really was not interested in the salt, but he thought it a good way to break the ice.
Little Luther jumped out of his seat. “Who the hell told you you could call me that?”
John looked first at Little Luther, then to Aunt Nelda. “I thought that was—”
Little Luther reached over and grabbed his shirt. “Nobody calls me that ’cept Ma and my pa.” The blue eyes were an inch from his nose.
“What’ll I call—”
“Now, now boys.” Aunt Nelda was at the table to mediate. “Butch is what he likes to be called, but you didn’t know that, did you, dear?
“Now Little Luther, I don’t want you using profanity at the table. Luther, you really must speak to the boy about his language.”
Big Luther gave no sign of hearing her. He spooned in large amounts of grits, alternating that with gulps of coffee.
Butch let go of the shirt and sat down. John raised a shaky spoon and put eggs in a dry mouth.
/> Aunt Nelda provided the background noise, droning on about how lucky they were to be together again, what a long trip it was, how nice that now the boys each had a brother.
John tried to concentrate on the kerosene lamp in the middle of the table. Its flame flickered from side to side, the nickel plating of the base reflecting contorted pictures of them all. It was the first time he had realized there was no electricity.
He heard it ticking before he could see it on the mantel over the empty fireplace. Every time she stopped talking even for a second, he could hear it. Your clock.
Aunt Nelda had packed it in one of the trunks. He kept trying to hear it tick, trying to make it drown out Aunt Nelda’s talking, Little Luther scraping his plate. The eggs felt like glue in his mouth. His breath came faster and faster. He couldn’t seem to control it.
He excused himself, rushed out the door, and leaned over the porch to throw up.
The Judge and Adell Vance liked to have their breakfast in the garden on mornings when the weather was right, when he wasn’t in a hurry to get to work. They would go out under the big oak in the backyard and have coffee and toast while she read the paper aloud. He would sit in the wicker swing that was suspended from one of the oak’s branches. She would take her place next to him in the green glider, both of which had matching green-and-white-striped cushions. He liked the smell of the grass with the dew still there, the occasional scent of the roses she had planted in a sunny back corner. The distant sound of an infrequent car passing by on the road that ran in front of the house gave him a sense of being part of the coming day.
Earlier, she had filled the silver pitcher with steaming coffee and placed a morning newspaper and toast between the creamer and sugar. Then Adell Vance had carried the silver service to the wrought-iron table that sat between them. She had poured coffee and offered toast to the Judge. Now she sat, dressed in a neat flowered silk dress and matching low heels, leafing through the Montgomery Advertiser.
Out of the Night That Covers Me Page 4