M.C. Higgins, the Great

by Virginia Hamilton

  Banina smiled. “Never move that God.”

  M.C. wasn’t smiling. “Witchy folks heal mountains by laying hands on them.”

  She looked at him hard. “Who told you that?”

  “Ben. His daddy put hands on the mining cuts.”

  Banina shook her head. “Never let your father see you playing with Ben. Stay away from over there, you hear? Living all bunched together. Nobody knowing which is real father to what son, and which mother to daughter. The wives never leaving the plateau. Those people aren’t right.”

  “I know who Ben’s daddy is,” M.C. said. “They’re just like anybody else. They don’t have no more power than we do. Do they? Wish they did. Wish they could change things—can they, Mama?”

  “They have the power,” Banina said. She stared at M.C. “There’s no denying. I’ve seen it. They are different.”

  “Seen it?” he said.

  “Seen it, and I haven’t been back since.”

  “Tell,” he said.

  “Well,” she began, “it was farmer in the valley behind the plateau. He was using a sickle on a patch of wheat. You know, it with that hooklike blade fitted into a little handle. Anyway, he was working and not seeing the child creeping up on him to surprise him. He thrust back with the sickle. And sweeping it forward, he caught that child in the curve of the blade. Laid his thigh open the way you slice to bare the bone from a piece of ham.”

  “Oooh!” M.C. said.

  “No doctors, only in Harenton, just like it is now. But there was the Mound. I was over there that day with her. We’d just got back here, Jones and I, and she was my neighbor. I liked her. I’d heard the tales of their power, but I paid no attention. Until farmer come running up all covered with blood. The child, so white and blood so much on his leg, you couldn’t see it. And she—”

  “Who?” M.C. said.

  “Viola Killburn,” Banina said. “Why, she simply took the child and arranged him on the ground. He appeared death-still. She didn’t touch the wound gushing blood all over. But move her hand over it like searching for something above it in the air. All of a sudden, the hand stop and tremble like over a hump and then move slowly the length of the wound curve.

  “Vi had her eyes on that wound in the strangest look I never will ever forget. Only her lips move. Secret prayers of the Bible, they say, but I don’t know,” Banina said. “I know this. The blood gushing away that child’s lifetime clotted all in a minute. The wound ceased to flow. It turn gray and darker. It heal.”

  “Man!” M.C. whispered.

  “Vi ran to pick the ginseng and other weeds I don’t know the names of,” Banina continued, “and she pack the wound with all this messy weed juice and stuff and leaf and dirt right off the Mound. The child was conscious. He have no pain when his father pick him up to carry him home.”

  A brilliant gash ripped across the summit of Hall Mountain. Banina sucked in her breath, her eyes running with fear.

  “It’s sun. It’s morning!” M.C. said.

  He helped his mother to her feet.

  “Mercy!” she said. She pressed her hand against her chest. “That took my breath, the way the sun bit into the mountain the minute I’d finished.”

  “Nothing witchy about it,” M.C. said. “And if Killburns have power to heal, why won’t you go there? Why is Daddy so bent against them?”

  “Theirs might be power for bad in some way we don’t recognize—isn’t the Lord suppose to have the power for good?” she said and added: “A man, a child will go over there just for a visit. And will end staying and working for them. He’ll become practically a Killburn. Nobody knows who is related to who over there. That’s what your father and me wonder about.”

  “I don’t know.” M.C. sighed. “Ben and me, we’re close. But I’m getting tired of Daddy. Tired as I can be.”

  “Come on,” Banina said. “We’ll miss the morning sun.” And later: “It’s not your daddy you tired of, M.C. It’s here. It’s this place. The same thing day after day is enemy to a growing boy.”

  And all the ghosts, M.C. thought. All of the old ones.

  They went on. Banina led the way along the slope that opened into a pass at the side of Hall Mountain. The reach of land rose gently as they made their way through a stand of silent pine trees.

  Changing the subject, M.C. spoke again. “Dude wants you to make records, only he didn’t say it. Did he say it after I went to bed?”

  “No, not a word about it.”

  “I guess when he comes back then,” M.C. said.

  “Maybe.” She smiled at him, waiting to walk with him. “You know, I sing ’cause I’m coming home. I’m seeing my family again. I’m seeing the mountain. Loving it.”

  “You don’t want to make some records?” he said.

  “Well, if the dude made it easy,” she said. She hesitated. “Don’t dream too hard.”

  “It’s no dream that we have to leave,” M.C. said.

  She commenced to walk more quickly. “You live wide awake,” she said, “or you quit living.”

  “Meaning me?” M.C. asked. “Meaning yourself? Or Daddy?”

  “All,” she said. “All together. All apart. But all.

  “Now hurry, M.C.!” she said, whispering back at him, like she thought the rising sun might hear her and go back down.

  They came to the place where the pass ended in a ridge just high enough so that what lay on the other side was always a surprise.

  He wasn’t sure what his mother had meant by “All together. All apart.” But he sensed the words were especially for him; understood that she had gone beyond him to know something he hadn’t yet come to.

  M.C. let his worry wear itself down. He was beginning to feel himself grow eager inside in anticipation of the ridge.

  You can’t see a thing beyond it, he thought. That’s what’s nice. Anybody hunting along will never guess until he is over it. Then, bam! Right there in front of you.

  It happened just that way. They made the ridge in a matter of minutes and they still couldn’t see over the top of it. Next, they were over the ridge and there was the lake lying there the way it probably had for thousands of years. And something else they hadn’t expected.

  Seeing that lake in a dawning, M.C. felt it was his soul spread out on it in sparkles. The view for miles nearly made his head spin. There were four mountains beyond the foothills ringing the lake. They were Hall, which was now behind them, and Grey, in front. In their view to the south was Young’s and angled to the north was Sarah’s, much farther off. The sun came up over Hall Mountain. It lit the sky and the piney woods. It gave the lake a black sheen under white light.

  M.C. felt warm sun on his back. Neither he nor Banina spoke, out of respect for the lake, for the dawn and the sun. At that moment M.C. did things automatically. He peeled off his clothes down to his swimming trunks and carefully rolled his sweater, pants and tennis shoes into a neat bundle. He never took his eyes from the lake running smooth with just a slight sound of lapping at land. He bent silently to lay his roll next to the bag of his mother’s work clothes. Banina put her hand on his shoulder, slightly turning him so he could look down the shore on their right.

  “Already saw it,” he told her. He spoke softly so his voice wouldn’t carry over the water.

  “You knew it was here? You saw it before,” she whispered.

  “No,” M.C. said, “but I expected I’d find her again.”

  He slipped into the water. He could hear his mother right behind him. He swam straight out, sliding through the rich, incredible cold with a shiver but without a sound. Banina stayed a shoulder-length behind him.

  “Her?” she said. “Her?” almost loud, so that M.C. had to dive to stop her.

  They dove. There was surprising soft light below the surface. There was warmth that passed over M.C.’s shoulders, waist, feet. He kept going down and down until he was below the light. He broke out of the dive and turned onto his back. He could look up at the light and see the point where it
ceased to penetrate.

  Banina, still in her dive, couldn’t break it before she went beyond him. Almost at once she turned to his level, spinning on her back the way he had come. She passed him by and broke the surface a shoulder-length ahead of him.

  They broke the surface far away from shore. She flipped on her back, breathing in short sighs so as not to make too much noise. She rolled over in an easy turn and swam toward the middle of the lake. M.C. followed, holding back his strength. They reached the lake’s center and turned simultaneously toward the shore.

  Banina whispered, “What are you going to do?”

  “Do the same as always,” he said. “I pull into shore right where that girl has made her home.”

  “How you so sure it’s a girl?” she asked him.

  “Yesterday,” M.C. said. He explained that the girl had come in with the dude. Water broke away above his lip and flowed smoothly out on either side of his nostrils. “Saw her on the path,” he said. “And last night. She made this knot on my head.”

  “Oh,” Banina said. “I meant to ask you about it. Does it hurt?”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  Banina said nothing else. When M.C. shifted his easy stroke, she let him lead the silent paddling to shore. She fell far back, watching the rise and fall of his shoulders.

  M.C. felt fine, as though he knew as much as he wanted to know minute by minute. The sun warmed him and its dappled light fell through boughs of towering pines ringing the shoreline. The shore was mud-earth made dry and hard by sand and flat, rounded stones. The surface was not unsmooth, not a bad place to pitch a home.

  The tent had been raised on a well-thought-out site. It was far enough away from pine needle beds beneath the boughs so that footsteps couldn’t be muffled. It was placed on the shore edge away from the water, where footsteps coming would rattle around on the stones. The girl would never be taken by surprise from the shore. She had piled pine boughs and brush on the tent side nearest the ridge. Down from the shore, a pile of brush was all anybody could see. Only from the ridge could the tent be detected.

  Never counted on me coming out of the water. Better be quiet, though, M.C. thought.

  He thought no further. Minute by minute, sight and sound were enough for him. He reached the shore and lay on his stomach, half in and half out of the water. He was downshore from the tent opening facing the lake. The girl could have seen him coming in from far out in the lake if she’d been watching. M.C. guessed she was still asleep. No reason for her to have heard him and Banina. She would have to peer out and around the tent if she were to see him now.

  Sure not going to walk on the stones. But I will sit.

  He pulled himself up onto the shore in a sitting position just as Banina came gliding up. He motioned her to do as he had done. They both sat at the water’s edge, dripping wet and shivering, even in the warm sunlight. A long, peaceful time of silence between them. They breathed in the fresh air, closed their eyes and became a part of the stillness.

  All at once, a whoop and a holler on the other side of the ridge. Macie Pearl broke over the crest with Lennie and Harper hot on her heels.

  All three had no time to stop when they spied the tent and their mother and M.C. sunning themselves. They broke open the silence on those tricky, rattling stones with enough noise to wake the dead. Jones came over the ridge carrying towels and breakfast in a tomato basket.

  “Shoot,” M.C. said, “now they woke her.” Jones and the children had stopped on the shore just below the ridge.

  “You could ask her if she’d like to take breakfast with us,” Banina said.

  “Think she’s mad at me.” M.C. touched the tender lump on his forehead. “Anyhow, I wanted her to see me first, alone.”

  “Well, she can see you first,” Banina said. “Then bring her on up by the ridge for breakfast.”

  “You should of gone before she waked,” M.C. said. “Wish Daddy and the kids didn’t come.”

  “Oh.” Banina glanced out over the lake. With some amount of tiredness, she got to her feet. She stood a moment, not looking at M.C. But then she turned and walked away. Passing the tent opening without a glance inside, she headed for Jones and the children. When she reached them, she took up her shopping bag. Wordlessly, Jones handed her one of the two towels; she disappeared in the undergrowth of bushes to dry herself and to dress.

  Macie Pearl came running down the beach, bringing M.C. his roll of clothing and the other towel. She had half of a jelly sandwich for him held out on the palm of her hand like a slice of cake. She dropped the roll and towel on dry land behind him. Next she handed him the sandwich, looking brightly at him for a second before she turned and trotted back. She had passed the tent twice on her run and both times hadn’t looked inside out of respect for someone’s privacy. They all knew they were not to be bold with strangers.

  I was smart with the girl. I fought her, M.C. thought.

  In a bewildering rush of shame, he felt foolish at having brazenly kissed her.

  He crammed the sandwich in his mouth and wolfed it down. He hadn’t thought to thank Macie for bringing it to him. If she had expected thanks, she had given no sign.

  Swallowing globs of white bread, he wondered how he would ever face the girl.

  I can’t leave now.

  Moist dough was plastered to his tongue as he finished the sandwich. He cupped wet earth and sand in his hand and was holding it against his forehead before he realized he was feeling his bruise. It was tight with soreness.

  Maybe we’re even. She got cut and I got hit on the head.

  He waded out in the water to wash his hands and drink from the lake. Then he sat down again.

  Below the ridge, his family squatted or sat on the shore, dividing food from the basket. Banina sat with her back to the lake. The others fanned out around her, with Jones by himself in the center across from her. M.C. saw them all down there, but he was thinking only of the girl. He could feel her waking most certainly in his mind as she did in her tent. Without seeing her, he knew she hurriedly snatched up clothing and fought to get everything on before someone came looking in on her. She couldn’t know they would never do that. They wouldn’t spy on her. She was the one wandering around watching everything.

  No need to be quiet now.

  M.C. dried himself, smacking the towel against his legs. He rubbed it briskly through his hair. Flinging the towel out over the stones, he lay on his back. Feeling strong, he was M.C. inside and in every muscle. He was M.C. by the tent in the sun. Minute by minute, he heard the girl move about.

  Banina left to go to work. Jones and the children went in for a leisurely swim. The kids hung onto his neck. Jones let them dive off him. When they tried to dunk him, he shook them loose as if they were rubber dolls. Later he had a time getting them to leave the lake. They wanted to stay with M.C. and wait for the girl. Macie Pearl put up the biggest fuss. “I’m going to swim some more,” she yelled. “Y’all can’t make me leave!”

  But Jones made her leave, and the boys, too. Finally the lake settled back into stillness. Trees, shore, all was burning silence, except for the cooling songs of birds.

  Time passed for M.C. in a kind of sleepy haze. Sweat broke out in beads all over him. Drops slid down his temples to his neck. He let the perspiration collect at his throat before wiping it away with the palm of his hand.

  Lie here the whole day. Sleep. And wake up a burnt-up crisp, too.

  He couldn’t keep himself waiting in the heat any longer.

  “They’re gone,” he called to the tent.

  By now the girl had to have heard him slapping the towel to dry himself and then stretching out over rattling stones.

  “You can come out.” He hoped his voice wouldn’t scare her. He half expected to see the tent jump up in fear, but it wasn’t as skimpy as it looked. It didn’t make a move.

  “Wouldn’t hurt you,” he called, as gently as he could. “Last night you just took me by surprise. I don’t even have my knife with me.”


  He could be brave. He knew she had a knife. But he lay calmly on the towel. He wouldn’t let himself think too far ahead about her. Like, what was she doing all alone in the hills? Like, how old would a girl have to get before she could have permission to go off by herself into dangerous places?

  To get permission, that won’t make sense. Who will give a daughter permission to run loose?

  She has a car. Maybe they let her just go.

  Still, M.C. couldn’t figure out why the girl was there in the hills and in that bonecolored, odd-shaped tent all by herself instead of in town. Nobody lived alone in the hills.

  Without warning, the girl appeared in the tent opening. Casually, she turned and looked at him.

  With the lake shimmering and the summer sunlight making room for her, she looked like a figure living in darkness. Some premonition, dream, he hadn’t even thought to have. Bright flashes cut into his eyes as he looked at her, distorting his vision. She seemed to be standing in a halo of shadow.

  M.C. felt a sudden, reckless excitement. He gave her a low and perfect whistle through his teeth. Comical he was with just his head lifted up to look at her.

  “Hi, there,” he called over in his deepest voice. Grinning, he lazily gave her a hand wave. “They call me M.C. Higgins, the Great.”

  8

  WHO?” THE GIRL SAID. She smirked at him. Her voice was mocking but she remained cautious, all the same. “M.C., what?”

  Embarrassed, M.C. wouldn’t give his title again. He sat up on one elbow. “I’m M.C. Higgins. That’s what they call me.”

  Something glinted, catching the sun and flashing it in streaks of light. He forgot to ask her her name when he remembered the glinting light coming through the hills as he sat on his pole.

  So that’s it, he thought.

  It was the knife the girl wore attached to her belt by loops of leather thong. It had a long, single-edge blade with no rust on it anywhere.

  M.C. waited for her to say something else. But she just stood there with one arm raised slightly higher than the other. He didn’t think much about the way she was standing, except that it looked awkward, until he got up and took a step toward her. Her arm shot across her waist closer to the knife. The knife was nearer her left side. She reached toward it with her right hand.