“Do y’all live here?”
“No, we just stay here temporary. Soon we be goin’ to Chicago.” Willie looked around the room. “We just here temporary.” He swung his little legs back and forth sitting at the table. John hadn’t realized how little he was. Now that he took the time to study him, he saw a boy smaller than he was, or maybe John had grown and it had escaped his notice.
“Where’s the bathroom?” John said, looking for another door.
“Out there.” He lifted his hand toward the window.
John came over and sat down in the other straight chair. They sat there silently. Willie looked down at the floor, still swinging his legs back and forth. “She be back directly,” he said. “She usually keep plenty on hand, but she musta run out.”
“What? Of fly medicine?”
“It’s what I got on.” He held his hand out and showed John his arm, streaked with the lines he and Berl had noticed.
“It keeps the flies and mosquitoes ’way, and if you live here, you most always need it till you get used to them or they get used to you and don’t pay you no mind. Some peoples, they don’t pay no mind, like my mama. Me, they pester the daylights out of me if I don’t wear no fly medicine.”
“It . . . it probably doesn’t hurt, does it?”
“Nah, it’s made mostly out of soot and some lye, but it don’t hurt. Sting a little when it first go on. Mama Tuway is the one know how to make it. She know how to do everything in the swamp, she be livin’ here so long and all. She learns us all how to do.”
John got up and walked over to the window that overlooked the trail. At about their height across the trail, he could barely make out another house on stilts, nearly covered by leaves and moss. If he hadn’t been looking, he wouldn’t have noticed. “Who lives over there?”
“Them’s the Tagways. They ain’t goin’ to Chicago. They just like livin’ here and makin’ a livin’ fishin’, and Tuway say they can stay as long as they do like he say.”
“Well, what if they tell about this place? What if they bring their friends down here? I thought this place was supposed to be secret?”
“Tell? Ain’t nobody gonna cross Tuway.” Willie laughed at the thought. “They end up at the bottom of the river. Don’t you know about Tuway and—”
“What you tellin’ tales, William Tyler Delong? I done told you ’bout that.” She stood in the doorway. She had come up the ladder without a sound and stood there holding a tin can. She gestured to Willie. “Get on over here, boy.” He came slowly up to her. Then, without a word, he turned around and shut his eyes tight, waiting. She gave him a good swat on the backside. “Now get on outta here and don’t you go tellin’ tales again. Go on down and wait for . . .” she paused, turning to John. “What’s your name?”
“John.” He began to back up. “It’s John.”
“Wait for John. And don’t you go takin’ him no places that you ain’t suppose to go. I’ll tell Mama Tuway and then—” Willie was out of the house and down to the ground before she could finish.
“Get on over here, boy.” John walked over slowly, turned, and shut his eyes tight, waiting for his swat. She grabbed his arm, held it out, and began rubbing a black powder over it. “I don’t never want to see you leave here without this here all over you. You understand me?”
He opened his eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”
She gave him a handful and told him to put it on his legs. Then she put black streaks across his cheeks and forehead. There was the hint of a smile on her face as she looked at him when she finished. She went over to the washstand and poured water in the basin to rinse her hands. She still had her back to him when she told him to go on out and play with Willie. He was not interested in playing with Willie anymore. He watched the back of her head, her legs. He was interested in everything about her. She dried her hands on a towel and turned, to see him watching her. She flipped the towel in his direction. “Go on. Get on out of here.” She turned to hang the towel on a nail. “You all alike, all alike.”
He backed out of the house, only to stand on the porch, high above the ground, scared to move. The house seemed to sway with the slightest breeze. He whispered down to Willie, too embarrassed to let her hear that he could not do what she seemed to do with no thought at all. “How . . . how do I get down from here?”
“Just come on down them steps and then swing your leg over to climb down the ladder. It ain’t hard.”
He came down the steps, then slowly began to inch his way down the ladder.
“You’ll get used to it.” Willie was watching, hands on his hips. Finally, John was on the ground. He turned around, pleased with himself, and ran smack into Tuway’s leg.
“Where’s Willie?” he said, backing away. “We . . . we were gonna play.” Tuway stood there, looming above him. John instinctively took another step back. Tuway grabbed John’s shirt and pulled him close. The boy closed his eyes, waiting for a slap.
“You comin’ with me.” Tuway dragged him across the water that was between Willie’s house and the trail, walking on submerged planks. John’s feet dragged through the stagnant water. When they reached the trail, Tuway dumped him on the ground and pointed toward the house.
“Get on up there.” John scrambled up and ran ahead of him to the porch, where the old woman was sitting in a rocker, watching them. He stood on the steps not knowing what to do. Tuway walked past him and took a seat in a straight chair, leaning it up against the wall. He took a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit it. “How come you here, boy?” He blew smoke out and trained unblinking eyes on the boy.
“Well, I . . . you brought me.”
“Don’t give me none of your sass,” he almost yelled. “You know what I mean. What you doin’ followin’ me last night? Old Luther gonna send the sheriff out here lookin’ for you?” His voice got lower and meaner. “Am I gonna have to throw you in the river to keep him from comin’ round here?” He took a deep drag on his cigarette to let it sink in. Then he said, “ ’Cause I will, too. Don’t you go thinkin’ just ’cause I give you some of my leftover dinner up at the Judge’s house, don’t you go thinkin’ you mean somethin’ to me.” He let the chair’s two front legs drop on the floor as he leaned forward. “You might have the old Judge fooled, but you ain’t got me fooled for nothin’.”
At that moment, John wondered why he had left the dogtrot house at Uncle Luther’s, only to exchange it for one in the swamp. Tuway would kill him. He had almost killed him on the train. No one would ever miss him. No one even knew where he was. “I . . . I’m goin’,” he said, and began to back away down the trail. If he was fast enough, maybe he could outrun Tuway. He turned and began to sprint down the path in the direction of the old swamp road. He hadn’t gotten five yards before Tuway’s big hand grabbed his shirt at the neck. With the other hand, he gave him three hard swats across the fanny. Then he pulled him back to the front porch, in front of the old woman.
As she sat rocking and watching on the porch, Tuway’s mouth was in John’s ear. “Don’t you ever try that again.” His spit landed on John’s face. “Sit down there and don’t move a muscle till I tell you to.” He threw the boy on the ground, then climbed the stairs and sat down again.
“There ain’t no way you can handle him while I’m gone, even if the whole county ain’t already lookin’ for him.” He shook his head. His mother kept rocking. “We liable to hear hounds any minute now,” he said.
She stared at John impassively. “How did you know about Tuway comin’ here?”
He tried to cough to clear the lump in his throat. “I didn’t know about him comin’ here.” John took a deep breath and tried to control his shaking voice. Tears streaked the lines of black soot. “I thought he was goin’ to show Berl the way to Chicago. I . . .” His voice broke and he couldn’t get the next words out.
She watched him for a minute and then motioned to a water bucket on the side of the porch. “Go on over there and get yourself a drink and wash up your face. Then
come back here and tell me.”
He did what she said—took a drink from the tin ladle that was in the water bucket, poured some in his hands, and washed his face, using a rag hung on a nail to dry off the water and soot. He hated that he cried, that he wasn’t any better than a child. Finally, his hands seemed to steady, and he walked back over to them, his face still streaked. He cleared his throat to begin again.
“The way it was, was this”—and he told them the whole story: about how he saw Tuway in the graveyard, about how he told Uncle Luther that he was going to visit friends in the town he came from, how he believed him, how he knew the Judge wouldn’t believe him but that he didn’t care anyway, so it didn’t matter. In the end, he jacked up his courage enough to say in a halting voice, “Even if you don’t help me, I’m going to Chicago some way.” He looked at the old woman, who was still rocking and listening, as if it was an ordinary, even boring, story.
He paused to take a breath, not knowing what else to say. She turned to look at Tuway. Tuway shook his head. “Ain’t no way the Judge is gonna believe that. He gonna think Luther is up to no good. He’s gonna be callin’ up them folks in Bainbridge to check and see if John got there safe for his visit.”
Mama Tuway rocked for a while, thinking before she said, “The Judge won’t check if you tell him you seen him gettin’ on the train. He trusts you. You could tell him you seen him gettin’ on the train and he looked happy to be goin’,” she said.
John jumped in. “Don’t tell the Judge I looked happy. I don’t want you to tell him I looked happy.”
“Hush your mouth up, boy. We ain’t talkin’ to you,” Tuway snarled. He took another drag off his cigarette and studied the ground. “Might work, if they ain’t already got the police out lookin’ for him.” He rested his elbows on his knees. “Am I willin’ to lie for the likes of him?” He didn’t look at John.
“He would believe you, Tuway,” John said.
“Shut up, boy. You the one’s makin’ a liar out of me.” He turned back to her. “The Judge always done right by me and me by him. Keeps givin’ crop loans to everybody in the Bend, even with them bad crops we done had, and he don’t even know I stay out here. And he do me right payin’ me.”
Mama Tuway rose from her chair. “Ain’t no other way to do it. I’m just hopin’ it’s gonna work. We’ll know soon enough. When you get back, you can see what’s goin’ on and send word by . . .” She paused and looked at John. “Willie,” she called. He appeared out of the bushes on the trail. “Take John here and show him what he can and he can’t do. You know what I told you.” She looked at John. “And if you don’t do exactly like Willie say, I’ll throw you in the river myself. Now get.”
Willie grabbed his arm and dragged John off to the side of the house. “Don’t be standing there when they say for you to go. You get a whippin’ for sure.”
They walked around the side of the house to a trail that quickly vanished at the edge of a dark creek that meandered through the swamp. Willie said it would lead out to the big river if they were allowed to go that far, only they couldn’t because Mama Tuway had said they weren’t to go near the river. Willie lifted up low-lying branches to show him his boat. “This here is mine alone,” he said. “Tuway done give it to me ’cause it’s too little for anybody else.”
They pushed the boat out into the creek. Willie lifted a pole up out of the bottom and began to push them along. The bow cut into still water filled with swamp pictures. An osprey screeched a warning as they passed under her tree. Cicada sounds swelled, then faded as they poled along. “This here land on the left”—Willie pointed—“is the best land in the Bend.” Through the trees that lined the creek, off at a distance, a patch of sunlight shone on a field of corn. “Colored peoples been plantin’ that land since forever.” He poled on, talking away. “Now, the swamp side is where Mama Tuway stay. Course don’t nobody else want it but her. Ain’t much good for crops, but Mama Tuway, she like it. She know how to live in the swamp just fine.” The creek they had been on began to spread out in all directions, so that now it ran under trees and bushes that seemed to grow right out of the water. Willie stopped in front of a huge pine tree that had fallen across their path. Off at a distance, John could see sunlight again and what looked like a large body of water. “Mama Tuway say we can’t never go no more than this here tree.” They sat and peered out at the sunlight in the distance. “She don’t never want us to go out near the river. Somebody on the other side might see you.”
“What’s over there on the other side?” John crouched down to get a better view through the trees.
“That’s the white folks’ side. Only way you can get over there is by the ferry, and it ain’t runnin’ no more, ain’t been runnin’ since before I come here. You wanta go round by road, that’s nearly ’bout a all-day trip into Lower Peach Tree, the road so bad.”
Willie turned the boat away from the fallen tree and back into a low area with swamp on all sides. They were out of dappled sunlight and into deep shadows. “You see that there? That’s the best place to gig frogs.” He pointed to an inlet filled with reeds and overhanging tree moss. “Sometimes I can get enough for everybody to have supper on.”
Willie stopped to wipe the sweat off his face with his shirtsleeve. “Now if I was to let you, you think you smart enough to get the hang of polin’?” He looked at John, who was holding on to both sides of the boat. “Now I ain’t sayin’ it’s easy.”
“I could try,” John said, turning his head but not letting go of his grip on the boat.
“Well, come on then. I’ll show you.” Willie handed him the pole and proceeded to instruct. After a shaky start, John began to have some success pushing them through the water.
Willie sat back, trailed his fingers in the water, and let the morning breeze cool him down. “You doin’ just fine.” Willie smiled. “Just fine.”
Shell had gone quickly to the outhouse and waited for Little Luther to come out. When he did, she pulled him around behind it. “Quick, lookie here at this. John ain’t come home. Read it to me.”
Little Luther was still buttoning up the front of his pants. “What’s you talkin’ about, Shell? Stop pullin’ my arm.” He finished with his pants and took the paper she shoved in his face. “What is this?”
“Found it on John’s bed. I know he’s done gone and done somethin’ stupid.”
“How do you know that? Maybe he’s just late. He’s always late.”
“Read it.” She poked a finger at the paper.
“Is it printed?” He held it at arm’s length. No one had ever bothered to check Little Luther’s eyes. He stretched his arms straight out and squinted. “‘Dear Aunt Nelda, Uncle Luther, and Shell and Butch.’” Little Luther let his hands drop to look at Shell and smile. “He put down Butch, just like he’s supposed to.” He raised the paper again and squinted. “‘I have gone to visit my friend in . . .’” He paused, looking at the next word. “Must be the name of the town he’s from ‘. . . just like I told you I would. They sent me the ticket in the mail on Friday.’” Little Luther let the letter drop again and stared at Shell. “He’s left. He’s left us.”
“But he said when he left, he’d only be gone the summer.”
“He better come on back here ’fore school starts. If he ain’t here, who’s gonna learn me my English homework?” Little Luther said.
CHAPTER 42
THAT afternoon, like so many afternoons in the swamp, a rain came that formed right in among them. The air thickened as the day wore on. The sun, which had been bright in the morning, grew to a misty, pale ball by midafternoon, then disappeared altogether in a solid cloud cover. No thunder or lightning announced the beginning of a steady, windless, drenching downpour. The moss-hung trees became floating coral in an underwater wetland.
At first, John was certain they would become like everything in the swamp, wet and sodden, but when he and Willie were safe inside Willie’s house, it was no more than a pleasant tapping on the tin
roof. Exhausted by his night’s passage, John climbed to his third-row bunk and fell asleep.
Late in the day, when he woke, Willie seemed to be waiting for him. He went to the corner of his bed and fumbled under its moss mattress. “I got me some cards. You wanta play?” He had a tattered set of old maid. Many of the cards were missing and in their places he had made new sets out of pieces of cardboard. “Now these here are ones that match. I took to makin’ pictures,” he said, showing John rectangular-shaped pieces of cardboard with sticklike figures on them. “Drawed them off with pokeberry juice.”
They played cards for the rest of the day, into the early evening. Willie’s mother was nowhere to be seen. “She down at Tuway’s mama’s house, I ’spect, fixin’ supper.” They sat cross-legged on the floor, cards spread before them.
Long after the sun had gone down and his stomach was making noises, John and Willie climbed down from the house on stilts and took the trail to Tuway’s mother’s cabin.
From a distance, they could see a fire laid in the ground beside the house. Its flames threw light up into the big water oaks that surrounded the clearing. John had not noticed this side yard before. In daylight, he had barely glanced at the open space baking in the sun. His vague impression had been that there was a black spot on the ground, a large iron kettle, a few dilapidated tables made from fence posts and two-by-fours, and, around the perimeter, four or five tall poles with cross-braces on the top, from which hung scores of gourds. “Indian birdhouses for the martins,” Willie said. “Keeps the mosquitoes away.”
Out of the Night That Covers Me Page 23