by Ronald Kelly
The quiet sounds of her brothers' slumber whispered through the dark room as she slipped inside. Moonlight shone through a high-paned window, splashing across furniture and sleeping forms. She ignored Josh and Sammy, her eyes settling on Johnny's vacant bed in the far corner. Without hesitation, she turned down a corner of the upper sheet and nestled into the comforting depths of the mattress. For a long while she lay there, staring up at the dark outline of her brother's old Winchester hanging on the wall over a twelve-point deer rack, and also at the spot near the door where his flat-top guitar had stood for so many years.
It had been a month since Johnny and his pals had left for the CCC camp, and still they had received no word from him, not even a postcard. Clay put it down as youthful forgetfulness, but it was clear to see that everyone in the household was concerned over the lack of correspondence. It just was not like Johnny to go so long without writing his family, even if he was working halfway across the state.
Why couldn't you have stayed, Johnny? Cindy wondered as night sounds lulled her into a light slumber. Why couldn't you be here when I need you the most? You're the only one who would understand, Johnny. The only one I could really talk to.
She fell back into a deep sleep, this time unhindered by the stalking terror of her nightmare. She breathed steadily, the faint scent of tobacco lingering in her nostrils. But it was not the smoke of her father's hand-rolled cigarette that she smelled. It was a much more ancient intrusion, the musky scent of tobacco leaves, molded and rotten, in the dusty shadows of someplace long since forgotten.
Chapter Twelve
"Mama, here comes that old nigger Jonesy and his junk wagon."
The Biggs children had spent that morning playing on the front lawn, tying sewing thread onto the back legs of June bugs and laughing as they flew them like miniature kites around the persimmon trees at the south side of the house. Polly's sudden exclamation brought Cindy and Sam running. Their mother came from where she had been shelling beans on the front porch. Her face held a scolding look as she regarded the pigtailed girl.
"Now, what'd I tell you about using that word, young lady?"
Polly shrugged. "Pappy calls them niggers."
"Well, your pappy's too set in his ways to learn any better," said her mother. "You're not. So just hold your tongue."
They stood by the roadside and watched as Old Jonesy ambled up the dirt road toward town. A mangy, sway-backed mule decked out in blinders and a harness pulled the Negro's rattletrap wagon. Its rickety bed was filled with all types of patent medicines, condiments, tobacco, and hardware. There was a shabby canopy over the flatbed from which all manner of pots, pans, and cast-iron skillets hung. As the mule sauntered farther, they clattered and rang like the maddened crescendo of some insane church bell ringer.
The black gentleman who led the mule-drawn wagon was nearly as worse for wear as his source of income. He wore a sweat-stained derby hat over a black head as slick as an eight ball, and his toothless mouth was framed by a scraggly wreath of kinky white whiskers. Although his clothes were old and patched and his shoes were mere scraps of leather, the old man's eyes beamed proudly, brimming with good-natured humor.
"Howdy do, Mrs. Biggs?" he asked with a smile.
"Oh, just getting by, I reckon." She returned the man's warmth. "How are things with you and yours, Jonesy?"
A shadow threatened to rob the merchant of his smile, but it swiftly passed. "I ain't got no complaints," Jonesy replied. "Can I do you for something this fine morn, Mrs. Biggs? Maybe an iron kettle for your stove or some sugar or flour for your baking?"
It was at that moment that Polly spied a cluster of lollipops amid a collection of rock candy and peppermint sticks. The suckers were chocolate and fashioned like faces, the eyes candy buttons, the mouth protruding in rosy wax lips.
"Can we have one, Mama?" chirped Polly excitedly. "Can we?"
"Have what?"
"Those suckers with the big nigger lips! Can we? Can we have one?"
Maudie's face reddened in embarrassment. "I thought I told you to quit saying that, young lady. Can't you even muster a little respect for Mr. Jonesy here?"
She looked apologetically toward the old Negro, but saw no anger or resentment in his aged eyes. The only emotion she could detect was a tired acceptance of things that his people had endured for countless years. "No need to scold the girl, Mrs. Biggs. That's what they look like to me ... nigger suckers."
Blushing, Maudie delved into her apron pocket and produced a twenty-five-cent piece. "I'll take a quarter's worth of flour," she said, aware that Jonesy's merchandise was usually a tad less expensive than the groceries offered by Woody's store down the road.
The old man eagerly pocketed the coin. Lifting the lid off a wooden keg, he scooped flour into a paper sack. He handed the five-pound bag to Maudie, then gave each child one of the wide-eyed suckers. "There you go, children. Enjoy yourselves now."
"You needn't do that," Maudie told him.
Old Jonesy tipped his hat courteously. "Mrs. Biggs, you good people on Newsome Road are the only white folks in Coleman who'll buy my wares. Your kindness and generosity have fed my family many a hungry night, and for that I'm mighty grateful. Besides, young 'uns need a sweet or two, every now and then."
"Well, we're sure obliged," Maudie thanked him and started back for the house, the flour sack cradled in the crook of her arm.
Polly grabbed her sucker and immediately pulled the wax lips from the cocoa brown face. "Look at me! I'm a movie star!" she proclaimed. She placed the garish red lips over her own, prancing prissily around Old Tippy. The coonhound regarded her with dumb fascination, not knowing quite what to think.
Sammy took a hearty bite from his lollipop and ran after his older sister, leaving Cindy standing at the gate with the old man. "Mind if I walk with you a piece, Mr. Jonesy?"
The old man smiled. "Why, I'd surely enjoy the company, Miss Cindy."
They started down the rutted dirt stretch of Old Newsome Road, feet kicking up dust as they walked. The warm breeze of morning was dying down now, and in its place, a sticky heat began to settle in. It would hang over the little farming community until sunset dampened its intensity later on in the evening.
"I reckon you're pretty happy about school being out, ain't you?" Jonesy asked, fishing for a little conversation from the quiet youngster.
"Yes, I reckon," Cindy answered. She nibbled on her chocolate sucker. "Don't have much to do, though. Ain't got many friends to play with, and Polly ... she's always picking on me."
"What about your brothers? You got three of 'em, I recall."
Cindy frowned. "Aw, Josh's always off fishing or traipsing through the woods, and Sam's just a baby. My brother Johnny, he's gone off to the Conservation Corps to work."
Old Jonesy's face abruptly lost its shine, and he appeared to be much older than his sixty-eight years. "Yeah, the CCC. My boy Luther went east to see about one of them government jobs, but they turned him away. Said they didn't want no niggers lazing about and hindering their work."
Cindy looked up at the elderly gentleman. Suddenly, she felt a heavy sadness creep across her mind. "I'm awful sorry about your son, Mr. Jonesy. It was a terrible thing ... them hanging him like that."
The black man's eyes grew moist with tears, and behind those tears lurked a dark anger. "They just didn't have no call to kill my boy like that," he muttered to himself. "Just wasn't no reason for it, a'tall."
Cynthia Ann tugged gently on the man's dark-skinned hand and, catching his attention, looked up into the Negro's haggard face. "But why? Why'd they do such a terrible thing?"
His eyes softened at the girl's concern. "Well, I'll tell you why, Miss Cindy. 'Cause Luther was a proud boy, that's why, and most white folks, well, they just can't tolerate a proud nigger. When a nigger gets too uppity and bold, that kinda scares those redneck crackers. That's what those Klansmen are, girl. Just a bunch of damned fool rednecks!"
"But what did Luther do that was so bad?"
Old Jonesy produced a threadbare hanky from his coat pocket and wiped his eyes. "The way I hear it, Luther got off the bus at Perryville over in Trenton County after being turned down for the CCC job. His pride was hurt and he was angry, and I reckon he just lost his head for a moment. You know that big drinking fountain in the middle of the square out front of the Perryville courthouse? The one where only white folks are allowed to drink? Well, Luther marched right up to that fountain and drank his fill. Seems like the whole town saw him do it, too, from hearing folks talk.
"Well, someone got the word to the wrong people. We found him later on that night. Somebody had done strung poor Luther up. . . hung him from the old trestle south of Elder's Junction. They'd done him awful cruel before they finished. Beat him and striped his back with a bullwhip. It was the Klan who done it. Damned cowards in bed sheets!"
The wagon merchant grew moody and silent. Cindy lapsed into a silence of her own. She had known of bigotry and hard feelings toward blacks all her life, but had not yet grasped the reasons that generated the hatred. And to horribly kill a man for the crime of quenching his thirst, well, it was more than her youthful mind could comprehend.
As they walked along, approaching the fork in the road, Old Jonesy turned curious eyes on his red-headed companion. "Miss Cindy?"
"Yeah?"
"How'd you know that it was my boy who was hung?"
Cindy stopped in mid-stride, confusion creeping into her freckled face. Exactly how had she known that the unfortunate victim had been Old Jonesy's son, Luther? Sure, she had overheard her father's conversation the night before, but no mention had been made of the lynched man's identity.
"I . . . I can't figure it out," she replied shakily. "I just knew."
"Just like you knew that Mrs. Holt's baby was dead?"
The haunting memory of the little white casket and Vera Mae's hateful rage came to mind. It's happening again, she thought grimly.
The merchant sensed Cindy's change of mood. "It ain't nothing to be ashamed of, girl. If the good Lord has seen fit to give you that power, then you oughta learn to accept it."
"That's what Mama says. But it feels so wrong sometimes. It seems like I'm the cause of all the trouble I see."
"Naw, that ain't the right way to think," explained Jonesy. "I know this old granny woman up in the hills. She's been birthing babies and foretelling things since she was knee-high to a grasshopper. And, you know, she be the most sensible and caring woman there is. The reason why is because she's proud of what she can do. If you get to fearing and mistrusting your own self over something like that, well, you surely ain't gonna trust no one else. And that's a mighty sorry way to be."
Cindy stood there on the hot dust of the country road and stared up in amazement at the old black man. It was the first time since she had discovered her newfound gift that anyone had explained to her so clearly what she had been feeling and why. And, although the underlying fear still remained, deep-seated and unshakable, she saw for the first time that the power she possessed was not something evil, not something to be cast away and forgotten. No, it was something to be tolerated and controlled . . . and she aimed to do just that, if she could find the courage within herself to do so.
Chapter Thirteen
The subtle art of hand-rolling a cigarette requires a combination of skill and patience. Some master the process rather easily, while others sputter and curse over tobacco and paper, never quite getting the hang of it. Youngsters building their first smoke from the basic ingredients more than often find themselves embarrassed and intimidated by the tedious operation, drawing guffaws and catcalls from nearby veterans. However, few have ever been known to roll their own using only one hand. The sole performer of that small feat in Bedloe County was one Clayburn Biggs.
Josh, Clay's fourteen-year-old son, watched mystified from the passenger side of the old Ford pickup as his daddy winked knowingly and fished in the pocket of his chambray shirt for his pouch of Bull Durham. Letting the truck coast down the busy avenues of Nashville, Clay kept one hand steady on the steering wheel while the other deftly went into action. Two fingers separated the drawstrings, while the farmer brought the cloth bag to his lips, extracting a single rolling paper from the pack. The paper he laid in his palm, cradling it like a small trough. His eyes continued to stare intently through the truck windshield, watching out for sudden red lights and fast city drivers.
With the flair of an expert, Clay looped the drawstrings over two fingers, letting the tobacco sack perch atop the nail of his middle finger. Curling his fingers inward, toward the palm, a generous amount of grainy tobacco was dumped into the paper furrow. Flipping the Durham sack back over his knuckles, it dangled by the strings, out of the way. Now came the tricky part. Any sudden motion—the slamming of brakes or the jarring of an unseen pothole—could very well spell disaster.
Bringing the palm of his hand up to his lips, Clayburn licked an edge of the stiff white paper, his tongue avoiding the mound of tobacco in the center. After the paper had been properly moistened, fingers snaked in under the opposite edge, curling the paper inward in a single, smooth roll. A second later, the task was completed. Clay held the finished product proudly between thumb and forefinger, a perfect paper cylinder packed tightly with an inner core of rich, brown tobacco.
Josh chuckled appreciatively, marveling at the saloon trick as he always did. Clay flashed his sandy-haired son a wide grin and, finding a book of sulfur matches in the bib of his overalls, lit the fresh cigarette. Josh had always had a special place in Clay's heart. Perhaps it was the boy's naive innocence and good nature that always softened the farmer's hard exterior. Josh had never been a truly smart lad. In fact, he was considered rather simpleminded, having failed school several times over, mainly because his attention wandered in the drab confines of the classroom. Josh Biggs was much more happy in the lush timberland of the Tennessee hills; hunting, fishing, and living off the land.
After lighting the hand-rolled smoke and taking a few puffs, he handed the cigarette to his middle son. "Wanna drag?" he offered.
Josh was surprised. All he had ever smoked in his young life was corn silk and rabbit tobacco. He had never been offered the real thing before. "Mama… she'll tan my hide something good if she finds out."
"Don't I know it," admitted Clay. "And she'd have me sleeping on the back porch with Old Tippy if she knew I allowed it. But she ain't gonna find out. Go on, boy, and take a try at it."
The teenager accepted the cigarette and slowly drew a long drag into his lungs. A fit of ragged coughing shook the illusions of grandeur from his mind as blue smoke curled through his nasal passages. He handed the cigarette back to his daddy, his freckled ears reddening at his father's hearty laughter.
The Ford swung off the avenue they had been traveling, detouring to the fast-paced stretch of lower Broadway. Along the way, they passed the huge brick structure that Clay had regretfully come to know so well. Clay spat bitterly out the window as they drove past the city hospital. It was there that little Cindy had spent the better part of last year in the feverish throes of typhoid. It had been a very costly stay as far as Clayburn Biggs was concerned.
Five minutes later they passed the bustling terminal of Union Station and were rolling down the steep grade to lower Broadway, with its collection of stores, restaurants, and night clubs. Upon reaching Second Avenue, Clay parked his truck beneath the Shelby Street Bridge. This was the riverfront section of town, facing the broad channel of the Cumberland River, a gathering of ancient warehouses and commodity businesses.
Clay had driven to Nashville that morning for two reasons. The first was to sell a couple of pounds of wild ginseng that he had dug from the woods behind his house. After being thoroughly washed, dried in the sun on sheet tin, and carefully weighed, the medicinal root sold for a tidy sum of five dollars a pound. The digging had been long and grueling work, but he and the young'uns had collected a couple pounds' worth. And that extra ten bucks would hopefully ke
ep them in beans and taters till the week after next, when Clay began working temporarily at L.J. Pike's sawmill in neighboring Galbreth County.
The second reason for coming to Nashville was to check up on Johnny. Although Clay would just as soon not admit it, he was starting to worry over Johnny's failure to write or contact his family. It just was not like the boy, and besides, Johnny's two buddies, C.J. and Billy, had also been strangely silent as far as correspondence was concerned. Clay had talked with Stella Longcreek at the post office the other day, and he had promised to check on the boys' departure at the bus station the next time he made a trip to Nashville.
A few minutes later, Clay left the business of Brock Brothers' Ginseng, Furs, and Walnuts with ten dollars tucked into a pocket of his faded overalls. He walked to where Josh sat on the rear fender of the truck. "Kinda hot out of the shade today. How's about taking a walk with me downtown? I'll treat you to a Nehi soda."
The boy grinned. "I could sure go for that."
Together, they strolled up the crowded walks of lower Broadway, in no real hurry to get to the corner of Fifth Avenue where the bus station stood. They passed pawn shops, furniture stores, finally stopping at a small market. Clay tossed the clerk a couple of Indian-head nickels, opened the squat cold drink box, and reappeared on the sidewalk with two frosty Nehi Oranges. The man and his son continued their leisurely stroll, savoring the tangy orange sodas and the feel of the cold bottles in their hands.
When they reached the bus station, Clay stopped. "Wait for me out here, Josh. I got some business to take care of."
"All right," agreed Josh. He leaned against the steel post of a street lamp and took another gulp of his soda.
Clay knocked the loose road dust from his bib overalls, straightened the brim of his hat, and started toward the ticket booth near the entrance. He hoped that the questions he had come to town to ask that day would be answered and that he could go home and tell everyone that Johnny and the others had left for the mountains safely and on time.