“Now you come on, boy, and then you, Berl. I’ll lead the way and you follow close.”
“What if I can’t jump that far? What if they’re snakes?” John eyed the distance from the shore to the place Tuway was standing.
“I don’t wanta hear nothin’ out of you, boy. You the one wanted to come. Get to jumpin’.”
John took one or two big steps to get a running start and jumped far short of the place Tuway meant for him to be. His shoes sank into water covered over with slimy moss. Tuway shook his head and with one hand reached down and pulled him up enough so that he could scramble onto what felt like tree trunks sunk under the water. Berl made the jump easily, and then they were off, following close behind Tuway, inching their way along in the darkness while the lantern swayed back and forth, lighting their path.
It was not until Monday evening that anyone in the Spraig household discovered he was missing. His routine was to stay the weekend with the Vances and return late Sunday night after supper. By then everyone was usually in bed.
Monday, in the late afternoon, Shell had gone out in the front yard to search down the road that led to town. If he was late, she could usually see him coming in the distance. Often she would run to tell him to hurry up. Her daddy didn’t like it when John was late for supper.
She had watched the road for several minutes, sure she would see his familiar shape moving toward the house. After a time of watching, she walked around the house to the door to his room. She knew he wasn’t in there. He would have heard her mother calling everyone to supper a few minutes earlier. She pushed open his door, scraping it across the floor. Late-afternoon light streamed through the opening and the cracks in the planking that served as a back wall. Dust kicked up by the moving door danced into the light streams. The room was still except for a small mouse scurrying into one of the cracks in the floor. She saw only stacks of fertilizer, his bed, and the note.
Shell tucked it in her shirt and closed the door as she left the room. She must show the note to Little Luther before anyone else could see it. She couldn’t read it, but it might be something that would get John another whipping. He was always doing the wrong thing.
The Bend
TUWAY couldn’t remember when he had started the business of bringing people to the Bend. It was a short time after he had come back from Tuskegee, sometime right after the war was over. Colored soldiers had come back home wanting more, now that they knew more was out there. Most had left and gone north on their own. Others had gone, out of money and on the edge of starving. He had seen all of this and had not paid much attention. Working for the Judge and trying to get back to the Bend when time permitted was all he could handle. Even though he stayed in a house on the outskirts of Lower Peach Tree, it wasn’t home. Once when he was talking to his cousin Obadiah, who had been a porter for years and knew all the trains that passed through Lower Peach Tree, they had figured a way to cut his travel time to the Bend by more than half. Obadiah could find out which cars on the freight trains were empty and open and he would pass the information on to Tuway. Obadiah said Tuway could hop the train and be in the Bend in thirty minutes as long as he didn’t mind walking through the swamp once he got there. Tuway had said no, he didn’t mind. He’d just as soon walk over a few snakes as spend a half day going the long way around to the Bend by the old hunting road.
Then came the night Obadiah’s cousin got in trouble and needed a place to stay. It was the perfect hideout. White people never came to the Bend. Even the owners hadn’t been out there in years. Besides, he was beholden to Obadiah.
After that came the Leroy twins and then that girl from over in Burnt Corn. Then, of course, there was the older couple, the Tagways. He couldn’t refuse them. They had no place to go when their children left for up north and they couldn’t keep up the farm by themselves. They had liked the swamp so much, they decided to stay on and not go on up to Chicago to join their children. Now they were still there. He had helped them build a house on stilts near the trail in the swamp, but out of the way, so that nobody would notice it.
Every time any of this happened, his reputation grew and grew, way out of proportion, he felt, to what he was really like. Colored people began to look up to him. He hadn’t meant to be their leader or to save them, or maybe he had, or maybe Mama Tuway had.
Until now, he had liked the two lives he led. He had liked the way people respected him, feared him.
But lately, it had started to weigh heavy on him. Things began to creep into his thoughts—things about Ella—about how they might go off to Chicago and live, just the two of them, with little Willie—someday. He had a right, after all these years.
CHAPTER 40
AFTER what seemed like hours of John slipping and sliding off the submerged logs and Tuway reaching back with his big hand to pull him out of the stagnant water, they made it to the boat.
The first gray, before light, was on them when they reached it. John could make out the outlines of a flat-bottom boat sitting next to a big tree with roots dug into the water. Tuway motioned him to sit in the front, Berl in the middle. He picked up a big pole that had been lying in the boat and began to slide out through the water, around trees, under curtains of moss, past old stumps. Even as it got lighter, it was dark and covered with shadows where they moved through the water. High up in the trees, ospreys screeched as they flew out of their nests, hunting morning food. Fish jumped off in the distance. Turtles and water snakes slid quickly off logs and stumps into the water at the first sound of Tuway’s pole digging in the black water, or pushing off a passing tree. Tuway knew the trail through the trees and underbrush so well that it was as if they were traveling down a road, with signs at every turn that only he could see. It was a maze of trees and water, a few small islands here and there and bushes that seemed to spring right up out of the water in the early-morning shadows.
“We ain’t got no time to waste. It’ll be light before you know it, and I don’t like to be in this part of the Bend in daylight.”
“I could never find my way,” John said.
“You’ll learn it.”
“But I won’t be here that long,” John said. “I’m goin’ to Chicago.”
“Stop talkin’,” Tuway said, and lifted the pole out of the water. They glided along in silence.
“We comin’ to the road,” he whispered. The boat front hit against a grassy shore. They had come to what looked like the track bed, but it wasn’t as high and it had trees and bushes growing up its sides. It extended to their right and left as far as the bushes and trees would allow them to see. He poled the boat alongside, jumped out, and walked a few yards up the slope, then came back to them. “It’s okay,” he said in a normal voice. “Once in awhile, hunters think they wanta come in here. Course that ain’t happened in five years, but I don’t take no chances.” He began to tie the bow rope to a tree. “We usually go round the other way, but we was too late to do that. Can’t let nobody see us, so this here way is better.”
He looked at them just sitting there. “Well, get on out. What you waitin’ for? We gonna go on over the road and walk the rest of the way in.”
“I’m ready,” Berl volunteered. “I ain’t had no sleep for three days runnin’. I’ll be glad to get to a place I can lay down.”
“Me, too,” John said, but the thought of sleep had never entered his mind.
When they got to the top of the road, they came upon what looked like someone’s garden, rows of corn, tomato plants, okra plants, all in neat rows, as if they were tended and chopped every day. John could appreciate whoever was doing the chopping.
“I thought you said this here was a place to hide out till the train come,” Berl said. “Look at all this here garden business. Look like the middle of town.”
“Done put a garden in this year to feed all them mouths we done ended up with.”
“What’s you mean, ‘all them mouths’? I thought it was just me and the boy here, maybe one or two others.”
&
nbsp; “Used to be one or two.” They passed the garden and headed on down the other side of the slope to a tiny path that led off in the swamp. As they walked along single file, someone called to Tuway. They looked up, to see a house built on stilts right up out of the swamp. It was made of scrap wood and pieces of tin that looked to be discards from a henhouse or some other farm building. Farther on, there was another, and then another, all half-hidden, built up out of the water. Someone in one of the houses would call out to Tuway. John and Berl would look up and see them staring, especially at John, from crude cut windows.
At the end of the trail, which was maybe a quarter of a mile long, there was a small clearing. In the center was a very old house of wood siding faded to a silver gray, its four corners resting on lumps of rock and cement. It had originally been a house with only a dogtrot in the middle, but on second thought, and years later, someone had added a porch that ran the full length of the front. Deer antlers were nailed over one of the doors. Rockers with faded flowered cushions were scattered on either side of wide steps made of rough-cut lumber that gave entrance to the outdoor living room. Along the porch railing were tin cans of various sizes, sprouting herbs and other swamp plants. In the yard, various ornaments hung from low tree branches, giving off a tinkling sound with the slightest breeze. Two hound dogs dutifully trotted out to sniff the new people.
The old woman held a rusted watering can that slowly drenched the plants and railing as she watched them approach. Eyes, yellowed around their dark centers, stared first at John and then at Tuway. A long flowered dress hung loose round a thickening middle. She looked down and moved the watering can on to the next group of plants. The morning sun caught the clench of her jaw flexing. Finally, the water was gone and she set the can in a space on the rail. By then, they had moved within a few feet of her.
She would not look at them, instead turning to Tuway, who had a foot on the bottom step. “You got good cause for this, I know. I just can’t think of it.”
Tuway moved slowly up the steps and to the door that he opened for her. He motioned for her to go inside. To Berl and John, he said, “Sit down right there on them steps and don’t move a muscle till I come out.”
They both sat down on the wood stoop. Berl pulled out a pouch of tobacco and began to roll himself a cigarette. “Done had the last of my store-bought. From now on, it’s roll your own.”
The morning sun summoned the first sounds of the cicadas. A light breeze brushed the Spanish moss against tree branches.
None of the houses they had just passed was visible now. Without thinking, John got up and started walking back down the trail to see if he had imagined it all. He walked a few feet, peering up into the trees, until he saw one of them, almost camouflaged by moss and tree branches. A brown face was looking out at him from a doorway high off the ground. The little boy, who was smaller than John, maybe five or six years old, watched a moment longer, then threw down a rope that was attached to the side of the house and shinnied down so fast, John blinked. He let go of the rope and stood looking at John.
John raised his hand ever so slightly.
Just then Berl called to him. “You better get on back over here, boy, if you know what’s good for you. Tuway’ll tan your hide.”
John raced back to the front stoop and sat down. “I forgot.”
“You better not go forgettin’.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette and let his head droop down. “I sure wish they would get done with decidin’ whatever it is they decidin’. I’m gonna fall asleep right here if I don’t get a place to lay my head soon.”
They could hear his voice from time to time. He must be telling her how they came to be here. “I couldn’t do nothin’ else,” he was saying. “You ’spect I shoulda throwed him off the train? Is that what I shoulda done?” There was silence and then: “There ain’t another one for two weeks. That’s what he said. I can’t do nothin’ ’bout that.” Tuway’s voice was getting more and more irritated as he talked.
“Berl, who is that he’s talking to?” John asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but if I was to guess, I’d guess his mama. They say he raised in the swamp, and sure as hell, this here is one big swamp, and we right in the middle of it.” He slapped at a mosquito. “I ain’t partial at all to places like this—full of things you can’t see comin’ at you. Sooner I’m out of here and on my way to Chicago, the better.”
“Me, too.” John pretended to slap at a mosquito.
After awhile, the door opened and Tuway stood there, a disgusted look on his face. “Willie,” he yelled out without looking up. The same little boy John had seen in the stilt house appeared on the trail in front of them and ran to stand at attention before Tuway. “Take this one”—he pointed to Berl—“to stay at the round house. Take this one”—he pointed to John—“to stay with you and your mama. Tell your mama I’ll explain to her later. And tell her to put some of that mosquito medicine on him to get rid of as much of that white as she can.” He turned to go back inside, mumbling to himself.
Berl was standing up to follow Willie. “Uh, excuse me, Tuway, I know it’s early to ask, but when you think I might be gettin’ out of here?”
“No tellin’, Berl, no tellin’.” He closed the door.
They both turned to their new guide. He had on short pants and a T-shirt, no shoes, and faint streaks of what looked like gray ash marked his body. They ran across his arms and legs and lined his face. He motioned them to follow, turned, and started back down the trail.
John gestured to Berl as they walked along, pointing his finger at his face to ask in sign language why he had that stuff on his body. Berl shrugged his shoulders. “Damned if I know. Look like some Zulu warrior, if you ask me.” He brushed flies away from his face as they walked. “This place got more varmints than a fruit orchard in season.”
“I am damned, too,” John said, and spit out what must have been a gnat that had flown in his mouth.
They walked down the dirt path some distance past Willie’s house, until they came to another one, which was bigger and seemed to have more rooms. Willie pointed upward. “This the round house. It’s where you stay.”
“Up there?” Berl stared. “Why can’t I stay on solid ground like that?” He pointed back to the house in the clearing.
“ ’Cause that’s Mama Tuway’s house.” No other explanation seemed to be necessary.
Berl stared upward. “How you suppose I’m gonna get up there?”
Willie walked over to the side of the house, reached around back of one of the poles, and untied a thin rope. When he let it go, a rope ladder rolled down out of the floor of the house. “Usually, it stay down, but everybody off fishin’ this mornin’.”
Berl sighed. “They ain’t got nothin’ better to do than go fishin’ round here. Look like I done come on me a ‘resort’ for rich people.”
Willie looked at Berl, blank-faced. “They don’t catch no fish, we don’t eat no supper. When they get back, they tell you where to put your things.” He turned to leave and motioned John to follow.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Berl called after them. “When you think they be back?”
“After they catch enough fish.”
Berl set his bag down and leaned up against a tree.
“Best mind where you lean,” Willie said. “Snakes.”
Berl jerked away from the tree, cussing under his breath.
John and Willie walked on toward Willie’s house.
CHAPTER 41
MAMA, Tuway say”—Willie pointed to John—“he gonna be stayin’ with us.”
They were standing on a small porch that was in front of Willie’s front door. Willie had climbed up a few boards nailed to the back side of two stilts. After that, he had come onto a small platform that was a landing and led up three more steps to the porch. John had followed but was unsure at every step. Now Willie’s mother stood looking at him. “What in the world has got into Tuway, bringin’ him here to me and he know how I feel.”
“Mama Tuway say for you to cover him up with fly medicine so he won’t show out so much.”
“What’s fly medicine?” John asked, backing off.
She said nothing, just kept studying John. Then she pulled the boys aside and stepped out on the porch. “Stay right here till I get back. I ain’t havin’ no white boy. . . .” She turned and left by way of the steps. “We’ll just see ’bout this.” She let herself down to the ground with such ease, the boy thought she must have been doing it all her life. He watched her walk off down the trail, her shoulders hunched over, her eyes watching the ground. She moved with an awkward stride that said she had no idea how strikingly beautiful she was.
Willie watched John staring after her. “I know she don’t look right with her hair cropped, but she lettin’ it grow out. Soon as it gets longer, we gonna go on up to Chicago, but right now, Tuway say she can’t travel with her hair like that. She be noticed by everybody.”
John hadn’t noticed her hair. He was too taken with her dark eyes, with her long legs, with milk chocolate skin pulled over high cheekbones, looks he could not compare to anything he had ever seen before but looks that he knew would be considered stunningly beautiful.
“She done got mad, just buzzed it all off right ’fore we come here,” Willie said. “Then she just lay round for a long time after . . . but then we come here and Mama Tuway done got her up and goin’.” He walked over and took a seat at a table that had two straight chairs. “She be all right now,” he added.
John looked around at a small room with two windows and bunk beds, three beds high, next to one wall. They were made from more sawmill end pieces. He walked over to feel the feed-sack covers that made up the mattresses. Small pieces of moss showed between the seams. On another wall, wooden shelves stored a few cans on one shelf and folded clothes on the next two shelves down. The middle shelf was wider than the others and held a washbowl and pitcher. Up this high, above the ground, sunlight streamed into one of the windows; cicadas whined in the trees.
Out of the Night That Covers Me Page 22