by Lisa Wingate
The wind ebbed off, and then plain as day coming through the woods was the sound of a man singing. The words to that song were clear as a winter creek.
“ ‘Swing low, sweet char-riot, comin’ for to carry me home. Swiing lo-oow, sweeeet char-riot …’ ”
“What in the world …” Imagene whispered.
Radar and Hawkeye started making a racket again and drowned out everything else until Kai quieted them down. When they hushed up, sure enough there was a dog barking back at them from somewhere in the woods. The long, low bay of an old coonhound was driftin’ through the trees, sounding just like the hunting dogs on Mamee’s porch.
“It somebody out there,” Lucy whispered.
Imagene put her hands on her window, squinting against the dark. “Who’d be walking through the woods singin’ at a time like this?”
“I can’t imagine.” Opening my door, I got out and peered off into the thick black of the woods. “It’s comin’ from back behind us.” I moved around to the rear end of the van to hear better. “I see a light.” Lucy and the dogs hung out the side door, their heads all turnin’ when I pointed. There was a light bouncing along through the trees, flickerin’ in and out of the underbrush, waist high. There one minute, gone the next, then back again.
“I see it,” Lucy whispered.
Kai slipped out of the van and tiptoed to where I was. The old dog had a fit about that, and he started trying to push his way through the door. Lucy whispered something in Japanese, and Kai told the dog to stay where he was.
The hound dog bayed out in the woods, then the woods turned quiet as cotton.
Kai moved to the edge of the security lamp’s glow, taking steps one at a time, her arms stretched out, like she was feeling the air for danger.
The hound barked in the trees, and it was close this time. Whoever it was had come just to the other side of the underbrush and hid his light. I heard him try to shush his dog. Kai’s mutts heard it, too, and that young dog was out the door like a greased pig through a wet gate. Lucy didn’t have a prayer of stopping him.
“Radar!” Kai hollered, but it was too late. He was off across the parking lot, and a second later the other dog was out, too. He’d dragged Lucy halfway through the doorway, trying to get past her. Kicking up gravel, he ran across that parking lot and slid to a stop in front of Kai, growling low. The other dog, Radar, was gone in the dark, but I could hear him hopping through the woods and yapping.
“Radar!” Kai hollered, and bolted out of the light and disappeared into the brush. The old dog ran off after her, and I hobbled, stiff-legged, after all of them. Just when I got to the edge of the brush, there was a commotion nearby, and something pushed through into the parking lot, with Kai’s dogs right behind.
Lightning flashed overhead, and thunder pounded the sky like a giant parade drum. Things were movin’, and blowin’, and fallin’, and barkin’, and squealin’, and gravel was flyin’ everywhere. Kai stumbled out of the brush, calling her dogs, the hound bayed, and the man hollered, “Ged-down! Ged-down! Ged-down!” The security lamp was dim overhead, but I could see that man turning ’round and ’round, trying to hold something—his dog, I thought it was—up off the ground while Radar circled around him, yappin’ and waggin’ his tail and jumpin’ up. The man was a black fella, so tall and stout he looked like he could sure enough play linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys. His head was shaved bald as a cue ball, and sort of waxy-like, so that it caught the light and shined, while he tried to hold his dog up and keep the other dog down.
He was a sight relieved when Kai got ahold of Radar and Hawkeye and pulled them off. All three of us just stood there catching our breath for a minute. Time stretched like penny taffy, making everything slow down—the sound of cars going by on the road, my heart poundin’, the big shadow man trying to calm down that hound, Hawkeye and Radar barking and struggling to get at that man, Kai holding their collars and hollering at them to be quiet.
I heard a door shut on Kai’s van. “What happen?” Lucy hollered.
“I ain’t sure.”
“What’s goin’ on out there?” Imagene called.
“There’s a fella here.”
“I got a gun,” Lucy hollered. “Don’ try no funny biz-net, understan’?”
“I reckon we’re okay, Lucy,” I called. I got a sense about people, and that fella looked like we’d scared him worse than he’d scared us. His eyes were big as hen eggs, and he was hugging that hound dog like a fifty-pound teddy bear.
Finally, he set the dog down and bent over to catch his breath. The dog pushed up against his master’s feet, scared to death. “Ma’am—” the man’s voice was breathless, low, like he was talking in a empty barrel—“just hol’ that dog there, all right?” The words rolled together in a smooth strand of sound that reminded me of Mamee’s Cajun people. “Jus’ hol’ that dog, and I’m’ma git my breath, cher. Jus’ hol’ on now.”
Kai blew out a long patch of air, and her dogs stopped growling, folded their haunches, and sat down.
I turned back to the stranger. “You all right?” I didn’t move closer, just stood my ground. That man’s sheer size was intimidatin’, even though he didn’t seem like he meant any harm. Even bent over, wheezing with his hands on his knees, he come almost to my chest.
“I’m’ma say, I thought that dog, he’s gonna eat me up.” His voice rumbled in the air like thunder does when it’s far away. “I was tryin’ to figure out who’s over here, and that dog come-a-run out of that brush, and my ol’ hound dog, he lookin’ for a place to get on up out there, and next minute, gal-ee, we all in a tangle.”
“You all right?” I asked again.
He nodded but didn’t stand up straight. “I jus’ gotta catch my breath. I los’ my feet, and that dog, he get me down a minute, there in the woods. All I was thinkin’ was, Lawd, don’t let me get kilt by some dog. One minute, I was goin’ though them woods to fetch some water, and the next I’m’ma get ate up.” Straightening his back so that he was even taller than before, he looked over his shoulder into the woods. “Dropped my bucket and my lamp and everythin’. Hoo-eee!”
Kai stepped back, like she’d just noticed that he was a big, big man now that he was standing up. Hawkeye heeled at her feet, growlin’ again.
The stranger raised his hands like he was a prisoner giving the surrender. “Tell him jus’ calm down, all right? Where you gals come from? You live back in here someplace?”
“We were hopin’ you did,” I told him.
“No, ma’am, I don’ live here. We come from down near Perdida—Holy Ghost Church. We all come out together, the whole church.” He pointed through the woods. “Our bus, she blow a hose, so we pull off ’round the corner on the county road. I come across the woods to the ditch, to fetch some water in a bucket. I hear your dogs bark, and I wonder, maybe there a house in here someplace.”
Disappointment settled over me like a wet wool coat. “Don’t sound like you’re much better off than we are.” The wind kicked up again, and pine straw and dust swirled around us, so that air was rough as cornmeal. “Our van’s broke down, and we’re stuck. We’re in a fix.”
Setting his hands on his hips, the stranger whistled through his teeth, shook his head, and muttered, “Ummm, ummm, ummm.”
“Truth is, we need help,” I told him.
The wind kicked up even more, and he had to holler to talk over it. “We hadn’t got much to offer. The bus, she pretty full, but you can come on with me, and we find room. We figure that storm, she comin’ soon, and we better cut off down the county road and find someplace fo’ shelter. You able to walk out ’cross the woods, like I come? That brush, she heavy, but it’s twice as long ’round by the road.”
Kai and I looked back and forth at each other. I wished I could see that fella’s face, and his eyes, because usually I can figure whether you can trust a person. This time, I couldn’t tell anything for sure, except that that storm was coming fast and we were gonna have to do somethin’ prett
y quick.
Chapter 10
Kai Miller
Sparse, weighty drops of rain began pelting the van as we grabbed what we could.
Our rescuer, Ernest, took the heavy canvas bag the ladies had packed full of water bottles and leftover food, and slung it onto his shoulder like it was a feather pillow. “We gotta go, cher,” he said. “That sky, she gonna come open.”
As everyone else started across the parking lot, I grabbed the duffle bag with Gil’s Bible inside, then closed up my Microbus and stood looking at it, momentarily torn. Almost everything I owned was in the bus, including the jewelry-making supplies that represented most of my hard-earned savings—semiprecious stones, fine chain, findings, and spools of sterling and gold wire that didn’t come cheap. No telling if I’d ever see any of it again. All of it can be replaced, I told myself. It isn’t worth risking your life over. Absently, I slipped my hand into the duffle bag, my fingers closing over something square and solid before I even realized what I was looking for. Gil’s Bible. Something that couldn’t be replaced. Something I couldn’t allow the storm to take away.
I slid my thumb across the cover, just to be sure, before tucking the keys into my pocket. I ducked my head under the duffle strap, swung the duffle onto my back, and jogged across the parking lot to the underbrush, where the ladies were following Ernest into the woods.
As he cleared a trail, trampling down briars and ripping tangles of vines bare-handed, rain blew in, crashing through the trees like an invisible beast, coming closer and closer until it reached us. The roaring wind and the pounding water eclipsed everything, making even the thunder seem far away. Within moments, the forest carpet of needles and dead leaves became saturated and slick. Our feet slipped and sank as the storm forced its way through, stirring the canopy of trees like a giant mixing bowl, peppering the ground with debris, drenching everything, including us.
Lightning crackled in all directions, illuminating the treetops in flashes as we struggled down a hill and through a low spot that was filling fast. Through the haze of rain, I watched Lucy slide in the mud and land hard against a tree. Ernest’s lantern swung as he hooked his arm through hers and picked her up, then continued on, his legs splayed, his body bent against the pounding rain, the dog tugging frantically on its leash, trying to escape the storm.
Overhead, tree limbs whipped in circles like helicopter blades. Donetta grabbed Imagene’s arm, then clasped a handful of my shirt, and the three of us staggered over the slick forest floor, stumbling sideways in gusts of wind, calling out to each other, our voices lost in the storm. I reeled in Radar and Hawkeye, held on to their collars, used them to steady myself, felt the soggy leather tugging and stretching in my hands as we climbed a hill, then stumbled blindly down the other side and moved through water ankle-deep. The current tugged at my legs, and behind me, Donetta slid to her knees, then pulled up using my shirt as I braced myself with the dog’s collars. Around my feet, the water was getting deeper by the second.
“Come on!” I screamed, but the sound was lost.
Blinking against the curtain of driving water and wet hair, I squinted ahead, tried to see where we were. I couldn’t make out anything but the lantern, just six or eight feet ahead but barely visible now. Lucy and Ernest had been swallowed by the storm, but the light was moving, traveling through the underbrush, ricocheting off tangled vines and blowing branches. Radar’s collar slipped, wet and slimy, from my fingers, and he surged forward until the leash caught around my wrist. I hung on as Hawkeye’s collar slipped away, too.
Suddenly, the shelter of the trees was gone, and the rain was driving so hard I couldn’t see anything. I stumbled blindly behind the dogs, down a slope, into water running fast, knee-deep. The ground rose, we climbed out again, scrambling first in mud, then gravel. The dogs barked and tugged, then stopped. I felt someone’s hand touching mine, taking the leashes from my fingers. More hands moved me forward, out of the rain.
“Up here,” a voice strained over the noise. I staggered up something. Stairs. Three. An arm was half lifting, half guiding me. There were voices all around.
“This way, cher.” Someone wrapped a shirt—no, a towel—over me and guided me forward several steps. Grabbing the fabric, I wiped my eyes, tried to see again, to discern where I was. Out of the rain. We were out of the rain, but everything was shifting and rocking, the floor swaying in the wind like the deck of a ship on rough seas. Hands held me up, passed me from one to the next. I felt for something solid, touched a surface that was cool and slick. The back of a seat, and then another, evenly spaced like the rungs on a ladder.
A bus. We were on a bus, rocking in the wind, rain pelting the windows and roof, filling the darkened space with sound. Through the blur of water dripping from my lashes, I made out a narrow slice of light pressing through the front window, illuminating the outlines of heads, shoulders, arms, seats, people moving. Their voices rose over the white noise, the sentences coming in a rolling lilt, some of the words difficult to understand, not in English, I thought. I turned back and saw Imagene and Donetta standing in the aisle, silhouette figures against the light, their hand gestures pantomiming our journey like a shadow-puppet show. A woman with a long ponytail of braids was helping Lucy wipe the mud off her clothes.
Shivering, I pushed my hair out of my face, dried my eyes again, then wrung out my hair.
“Here, cher, you jus’ sit down here and rest. You jus’ sit down by Mona,” a voice said. “What in the worl’ you doin’ out there in that storm? That lightnin’, she strike, and you be knockin’ on the pearly gate.” A thick, heavy arm encircled me, drawing me into a seat. “Shirlette, go on back there and find this gal somethin’ to eat and drink, and a blanket. She gotta be cold in the bone and hon-gree.”
“I’m fine. Really.” I shifted away, trying to see her, but catching only her silhouette. She was heavyset, the light reflecting off something—braided hair with beads of some kind in it. “Where are my dogs?”
“Don’ worry about them dogs,” she answered. “My son, Ernest, he got all the animals in his big truck. They safe as the res’ of us.”
Nearby, Donetta was thanking someone for a towel and at the same time trying to refuse a seat. “No, now y’all don’t get up on my account. I’m fine. Don’t make that baby get out of her seat. I don’t need to sit … I’ll just stand here. Don’t … just … oh, all ri-ight.” The springs squealed as Donetta gave in and took a load off.
Mona grabbed the towel and started rubbing my arm like she was trying to get the circulation going in a newborn puppy. “You soaked to the middle, sha! And mud from the head to the foot. De’pouille! ”
The bus rocked hard to the left, the wind whistling cold and wet, howling through the spaces around the windows. A tide of gasps circulated, and Mona seized my arm. “Pastor D., we gotta get this bus movin’!”
“She about back together. Hang on!” a man yelled from the darkness near the front door.
“We don’ get outta this wind, they not gonna be nothin’ to hang on to. You kids get down in the seat back there. You hol’ on!”
The bus rocked wildly, the rivets groaning. For a moment, I was in Mona’s lap. Passengers screamed, a woman started crying, Imagene and Donetta called out for each other, and someone behind me called on Jesus. Grabbing the seat, I braced myself as the bus teetered on two wheels. Lightning flashed, flooding the interior with light, and then the light was gone and there was only the sensation of people all around, bodies holding breath, fear, anticipation, hope. The bus began righting itself, slightly at first, as if a hand were lowering us carefully, then faster, faster, until we were level again. Mona’s body collided with mine, and it was quickly clear that she outweighed me by quite a bit. Snatching me up in a hug, she yanked me back into the seat.
“Praise the Lawd!” A moment later, she was shoving me out of the way and heading up the aisle. “Pastor D.! Pastor D.! You men get this bus on the road now! Right now, or I’m’ma come out there and push it …�
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A shadow figure, rotund with a fuzz of gray hair that caught the light like a halo, rushed up the steps and slid into the driver’s seat. A strip of interior lights came on in the aisle. The engine squealed and backfired, then rumbled into action. Outside, the hood slammed shut, and in the glow of the headlights, the men who’d been working on the engine ran toward a large white delivery truck ahead of us.
Around me, hands flew into the air, fluttering like birds. People cheered, and Mona hollered, “Praise ya’, Jesus! Ça c’est bon!”
I slid to the interior portion of our seat as Mona headed down the aisle. The bus door swung closed, and a moment later we were on the road, behind the delivery truck.
“See can you get the church van on the radio, Pastor D.,” Mona called. “Tell them we movin’ again!”
“They know already,” Pastor D. replied over the noise. Standing above the dash, his legs splayed, he gripped the steering wheel with both hands, fighting the pull of the storm. Ahead, the delivery truck fishtailed in the mud and swayed, the metal wet and slick, reflecting our headlights in long, constantly changing streaks. Leaves and blowing debris clung to the truck like bits of papier mache, slowly sliding downward, then disappearing.
“Hol’ on, everybody!” Mona half stood beside me, grabbing the seats and riding the sway of the bus like a surfer catching a wave. “We gonna drive on up outta of this storm. We gonna be all right. I’m’ma say amen and hol’ on tight.”
We moved down a hill, and the storm ebbed under the tree cover. The wind quieted, and the rocking calmed. “I believe we gonna make it,” Mona observed, lowering into the seat beside me and whispering under her breath. A prayer, I thought.
I laid my head back and let my eyes fall closed. I was too tired to fight anymore, too exhausted to care what happened next. Outside, the bus bounced and slid down a hill, then wobbled across what felt like an old metal bridge. I didn’t look, just kept my eyes closed and let my body relax against the seat. The noise of the bus, the sound of Mona’s voice, the roar of the storm, the sharp smack of branches and debris hitting the windows faded, and I pulled the towel closer, feeling waves of exhaustion roll under me as the storm raged on, the bus rocking gently now. I listened to its progress, felt it from a distance—another bridge, another curve, the rear end fishtailing up another hill, sliding downward, the brakes grinding, another bridge …