They say she let it be known she a friend to the runaways, took ’em in and hid ’em in the underneath if anybody was chasin’ ’em.
Wendell stood halfway down the path between the river and the cabin, his jeans soaked with the water that sloshed from the buckets as he passed them up to Carl Jr., who passed them up to Callie. He’d lived less than a half mile away from that cabin his entire life without ever knowing it was there until five days ago. Never knew about runaway slaves crossing the river at Jericho’s Point.
They stopped at Miss Mary’s to wait for dark and to get a bite to sustain ’em, so they have enough in their stomachs to get across and all the way into Ohio.
And now Miss Mary’s cabin was burning, and it was Wendell’s fault for bringing Ray Sanders up to see it. Oh, he knew it was Ray who’d done it. Who else would it be? Wendell had passed Ray on Main Street on Saturday, coming out of McKinley’s Drug, and Ray had leaned in close, whispered, “I’m gonna get ya,” and then called Wendell a name his mother would slap him for repeating, but it had to do with being friends with colored folks.
How long had they been passing buckets up and down the line before word started trickling down that the cabin was gone? It felt like days to Wendell, but might have only been a half an hour.
“Anything left?” someone called from down the line, and the question echoed up the hill. “Just the underneath,” came the answer a few minutes later, each person passing it on to the next.
“That’s where I was hiding,” Callie told Carl Jr. “That’s where Wendell found me.”
Carl Jr. looked at Wendell, and Wendell nodded. “When I looked down into that hole, I thought it was a place to store things,” he explained. “Like a root cellar or something.”
“It felt strange,” Callie said. “Felt like something was down in there with me. And now that hole’s all that’s left of the whole place.”
“Cabin was falling down anyway,” Carl Jr. pointed out. “Sooner or later it was just gonna be that underneath.”
Maybe, Wendell thought. But maybe they would have built that old cabin back up. Not to turn it into a fishing camp or a clubhouse, but to make it, well, like some kind of museum, he guessed. He looked up the hill and squinted, trying to imagine runaway slaves coming through here, running through the woods to the river. He bet they’d been scared. He would’ve been.
Wendell saw the editor of the colored newspaper, Mr. Renfrow, walking down the hill. “Miss Callie,” he called out. “You and your brother and Wendell go on home and change. I want to see you in my office in an hour.”
Suddenly Wendell felt like everybody was looking at him, like they’d just noticed there was a white boy in their midst. Wendell kept his eyes to the ground. He’d let Callie and Carl Jr. explain what he was doing there. Except they didn’t really know, did they? They didn’t know the fire was his fault.
Back home, Wendell found the house empty, so he didn’t have to explain to anyone why he was soaked from tip to toe, or why he had ash on his hands. He wasn’t exactly sure himself where the ash had come from. He thought of the fireplace in the cabin filled up with ashes, and he thought of the name Jim written on the wall next to the door.
And then he thought of the old dog. Had anybody seen the old dog that morning? He’d thought he heard him barking when they were running up from the river with their buckets of water, but Wendell couldn’t recall seeing him.
Wendell raced to change clothes, then rode his bike into town as fast as he could.
21
Some Place We Ain’t Even Thought of Yet
It had been a long time since Jim had smelled anything, but as the flames crawled up the cabin walls, he swore he could smell the smoke just the same as if he’d been standing at the edge of a bonfire before a big football game. It was acrid and sweet at the same time, burning the little hairs inside his nose.
I ain’t ever stood in the middle of a fire before, Thomas said. I keep expecting it to burn me, even though I know better. You reckon we ought to get out?
Jim looked around. The flames were everywhere now, licking the ceiling, all the walls glowing red with heat. He walked over to the wall by the bed to touch it, to see if he would burn, but his fingers slipped through the flames and through the wall. He didn’t feel a thing.
He sniffed the air again, but this time there was no smell of smoke, and he knew he’d been imagining it before.
We won’t burn, Jim said. I don’t reckon it matters if we stay or go.
A fellow had to be in a bad way if he couldn’t even get burned up in a fire. That’s how you knew you weren’t part of nature anymore. That’s how you knew you weren’t like anything else in this world.
I wish I could burn down with this cabin, he said out loud. I’m tired of being this way, like I’m only half alive. I’d rather go up in smoke.
Thomas was quiet a moment before he spoke.
Don’t you understand? You ain’t even the least little bit alive. Not even one quarter alive. You ain’t been alive for a long time.
Jim ignored him. The fire was growing louder, and the roof made ominous, threatening noises. So what if it fell on his head? Jim wouldn’t feel it, wouldn’t be broken by it. When the fire finally burned out, there he’d be, in the middle of nothing, just another part of the nothingness.
I’m not moving, he said.
You just want to stay stuck here till the end of time?
You’ve been stuck longer than me. I don’t see you going anywhere.
Thomas flinched, and Jim felt bad about saying that. Sometimes he forgot that Thomas was just a little kid.
I’ma waiting for the folks to come get me, that’s all, Thomas said. Ain’t nobody get cross that river by themselves.
A beam cracked in half and fell at Jim’s feet. Fact was, that cabin didn’t have much longer before it was a pile of ash, and then what? He looked for his name on the wall, but it had already been eaten by the flames. Jim felt something hard rise in his throat. Looked like the last bit of him had finally been erased from this world.
You think you ought to do that? Harry asked, and Jim looked around for his old friend Harry Partin. He wasn’t there, and neither was Robert Lincoln, but Jim could see them in his mind, standing in the middle of the cabin, clear as day, and him, too, holding Robert’s pocketknife in his hand.
“Aw, this old cabin don’t belong to no one,” Robert had said. “I told you my daddy said it was here when he was a boy. Claims he spent the night here once and it felt haunted.”
All three boys had laughed at that. They were twelve years old and didn’t believe in ghosts or the afterlife or hauntings. They might say they believed in death, but they didn’t, not in any real sort of way.
Jim jabbed Robert’s knife into the wall plank. It took a fair bit of effort to make the line of the J, the plank being made of oak and resistant to the blade. Took Jim five minutes to carve the three letters of his name, and by this time the other boys were complaining, saying, “Come on, Jim, you can finish it some other time.”
But no. Jim wanted to finish it now. When he was done, he pulled the blade from the wood and saw that he’d ruined it.
“I’ll give you mine when we get back,” he told Robert.
“It don’t matter,” Robert had said. “It wasn’t any good anyway.”
Robert Lincoln. Jim wondered if he’d ever come back to the cabin after that day, ever traced his finger along the marks of Jim’s name.
Jim had never gone back, not until this summer. Couldn’t have gone back. Twenty minutes after he’d written his name, the river had claimed him.
I used to come up here, he told Thomas now. A few times, anyway, back when I was—younger.
You still a young’un, Thomas said. Look like one to me, anyway.
The fire was roaring now, but Jim could hear a dog’s howls come through the flames, high and anxious. Buddy! Buddy was out in the yard.
You don’t go out, he might try to come in, Thomas said. Might try to
save you.
How am I supposed to get out of here?
Through the door, just like anybody.
You coming with me? Jim asked.
Thomas didn’t say anything for a minute.
You sure he a good dog? he asked finally. He a dog that won’t hurt you?
He won’t hurt you, Jim promised. He reached his hand toward the door and let it slip through. Put a foot forward, took one step, then another. The door was burning, but when he went through it, the wood was cold. Every part of him was like liquid, like he was being poured from one side of the door to the other.
Buddy stood at the edge of the clearing. When Jim and Thomas stepped out into the yard, he stopped howling and started barking, running toward the woods and then back again.
Wants us to follow him, I reckon, Thomas said.
Jim heard voices in the woods. Buddy barked again and headed down a path away from the approaching footsteps. Jim and Thomas followed. The path Buddy led them on headed downhill. Through the trees Jim caught glimpses of people heading uphill, heard water sloshing in buckets.
They’re coming to save the cabin, he told Thomas.
Too late for that, Thomas replied. We better keep following your dog.
Wait a second, Jim said. He’d spotted Wendell and Callie in the long line of people. I want to go see someone.
Thomas followed him over to the line, and the two of them stood there for a minute, watching Wendell and Callie passing buckets up the hill. Jim wondered if he’d see Wendell again after today. Didn’t know exactly where he was going, but he reckoned it wouldn’t be around here. He wondered if Wendell had ever felt him nearby, or sensed that someone was trailing him through the woods or standing in the cabin while he looked around.
He always did seem like a good sort, Thomas said, and Jim nodded.
You gonna miss that cabin?
I don’t know, Jim said. It wasn’t home or anything. But I guess it kind of was for a little while.
Time to move on, Thomas said. Maybe home’s some place we ain’t even thought of yet.
And so they left, going farther and farther down, the noise of the river slapping at its edges growing louder and louder. Jim slowed his steps.
I can’t go down there, he said.
Buddy barked from down the path, and Jim could feel a need in his voice, a wanting. There was some place Buddy had to be, and he couldn’t get there if Jim didn’t go with him.
He took a deep breath. Only, he knew it wasn’t a breath, just the memory of one. He looked at Thomas.
Are you coming with me?
Where else I got to go?
Together they headed for the river.
22
The Deputy Sheriff Pays a Call
Callie could tell that the deputy sheriff thought he was somebody special, but as far as she could tell, he was just a lanky, scrawny thing with his chest puffed out from here to kingdom come. He held a little pad of paper in his left hand, a pencil in his right, but he wasn’t even bothering to write down a word Mr. Renfrow was saying. A tiny smile played around the corners of his mouth like he thought everything about this situation was funny—the broken window, the burned-down cabin, folks passing buckets of water up and down the line, all of it.
When Mr. Renfrow was done going over the facts of the matter, the deputy sheriff—whose name badge read MCALLISTER—looked over at Wendell, who was standing between Callie and Carl Jr., and said, “Now, whose boy are you? Your folks know you’re spending time in the Bottom?”
Wendell, cheeks reddening, put his head down and mumbled, “No, sir,” and Deputy McAllister nodded like he’d suspected as much.
“I don’t reckon the news would please ’em, do you?”
More mumbling from Wendell. Callie felt like shoving her elbow hard in his ribs, make him speak up, make him say, I got every right to be here, or, Is there a rule against helping out your neighbor? He looked puny, standing there with his hands shoved in his pockets, acting like he had no idea how he’d landed in Mr. Renfrow’s office. Wasn’t he the same Wendell Crow who’d set off the fire alarm by running as fast as he could to tell everybody in the Bottom the cabin was burning? So why couldn’t he say so?
Deputy McAllister turned back to Mr. Renfrow. “Now I hear you’ve been agitating for the pool to be opened to colored folks, and I reckon that’s the source of your problems right there. What I’m saying is, as much as I hate to see destruction of property, seems to me you brought it on yourself. You stop writing seditious editorials, everything’s going to settle down.”
Callie tried to hold her tongue, but the words flew out anyway. “That ain’t fair! It’s a free country. Mr. Renfrow should be able to write whatever he wants without getting his window busted!”
“Let me handle this, Callie,” Mr. Renfrow said, giving her a stern look. To Deputy McAllister he said, “Whether or not my editorial was inflammatory is beside the point. The law has been broken, and the perpetrator—or perpetrators—should be prosecuted.”
“They ought to be put in jail!” Callie exclaimed, earning another glare from Mr. Renfrow. “Fair is fair. You think because we’re colored, folks can do what they want to us?”
“What I think is that some of you down here like to stir things up,” Deputy McAllister said, his voice a little tighter than before. “In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if your window was broken by somebody from this very neighborhood, hoping to get something started. Same with that cabin—which, by the way, is on Bob Jericho’s property, and he ain’t gonna care if it got burned down or not. He might even be glad, if it makes the point.”
Mr. Renfrow pulled himself up straight as could be. “And what point might that be?”
“That nobody wants colored folks swimming at the pool. Colored boys looking at white girls in their bathing suits?” Deputy McAllister gave a fierce shake of his head. “We can’t have it. It goes against nature and God.”
Mr. Renfrow was opening his mouth to respond when, much to Callie’s surprise, that old Wendell Crow finally spoke up.
“It was Ray Sanders who did it.”
Deputy McAllister gave him a sharp look. “What’s that, boy?”
“Ray Sanders. He told me he was going to do something.”
“Because of the swimming pool?”
Wendell shook his head. “Because he’d seen me walking down the street with Callie. ’Cause he knew me and her were friends.”
Callie’s mouth practically fell open, and it looked to her like Deputy McAllister was going to faint dead away. Well, what do you know? Old Wendell Crow thought the two of them were friends. She guessed that was sort of right. They’d been through some things together, now that was the truth of it.
Deputy McAllister was staring at Wendell like the boy’d grown a second head. “You got proof?”
“That me and her are friends?”
“No, son! That this Ray Sanders was the one who burned down the cabin.”
“No,” Wendell admitted. “But he’s the kind who would. You ought to investigate him at the very least.”
At that, Deputy McAllister put his little pad back in his pocket, like he was signaling that this conversation was over. “You show me some evidence, I might. But the fact is, I can’t just go after somebody because some kid tells me to. I might go talk to your daddy, though.”
Wendell finally looked at the deputy. “Why? You think I’m the one who did it?”
“No, I just think he ought to know who you’re spending your time with.”
“He don’t care,” Wendell said, his voice brave and a little shaky. “Long as I ain’t in any trouble, I can do whatever I want to.”
Mr. Renfrow took a step between Wendell and Deputy McAllister. “Deputy, are you telling me that you won’t investigate the crimes that have been committed in this community? Not the burning of the cabin, nor the breaking of my window?”
“Ain’t nothing to investigate. Can’t fingerprint a rock, can I?” Deputy McAllister chuckled at
his own wit. “Can’t interrogate a burned-up building. Sorry, boy, but you ain’t got a case to make.”
Callie felt flames shooting up her skin, like she was standing in the middle of that burning cabin. “Mr. Renfrow ain’t your boy!”
“Callie!” Mr. Renfrow barked. “Enough!”
Deputy McAllister smiled at her. “You’re still just a little girl, ain’t you? You’ll learn how things work soon enough.”
Callie opened her mouth to say something else, but a hand clamped on her shoulder and pulled her back a few steps.
“Keep it to yourself now, Little Sis,” Carl Jr. said softly. “Just let it go.”
“I expect you ought to listen to him,” the deputy said as he headed for the door. “He’s the only one in here with a lick of sense.”
Callie looked up at her brother. Carl Jr.’s face had turned into stone, not a bit of expression to it.
“Well, children,” Mr. Renfrow said after the deputy left, “Deputy McAllister does not seem overly concerned with seeing justice served, now does he?”
Callie felt around her collar, surprised that steam wasn’t shooting out of her clothes. “He can’t do us that way,” she insisted. “It ain’t fair not to even investigate.”
“No, it’s not,” Mr. Renfrow agreed. “But Deputy McAllister is not the limit of the law in this town. I’ll take our case to the sheriff and to the mayor if need be.”
“They ain’t going to listen to you either.” Carl Jr. walked over to the ficus tree dripping leaves by the front door and took a swipe at its branches. “They don’t care about the Bottom, about what happens down here.”
“But that’s not right.”
Callie, Carl Jr., and Mr. Renfrow all looked at Wendell. “The law ought to apply everywhere,” Wendell continued. “What if somebody came in here and shot us all dead? Wouldn’t that person get arrested?”
Trouble the Water Page 12