Francie

by Karen English

  The Bascombs

  Once I was on the path to the creek, my fear grew. I decided to try a shortcut, pushing through brush and leaping over tree roots, until I heard something that stopped me as still as a frightened deer. Men’s voices. Up ahead. Carefully, I made my way through the undergrowth.

  White men. Two of them. I pictured Mama’s mason jars lined up neatly by the creek, all nicely labeled. My breath came fast and shallow as I suffered through the thunderous sound of every rustling leaf.

  Maybe I had imagined it. I waited, then continued, stepping even more cautiously. Those voices again. Not the sheriff and his deputy; other voices, steadily getting closer. With terror taking hold, I looked for a place to hide, all the time pushing down the urge to cry.

  In back of me was brush dense enough to hide in. I ducked behind it and hunched down, struggling to hear what the voices were saying. To my horror, I heard Prez’s voice—whimpering. Pleading. Then Perry’s pleading in the same tone. I knew then what it meant to feel as if all your blood had drained away. I felt faint.

  Gently, I parted small branches until I could see. Four figures came into view and I clamped my mouth with my hand. A small animal, perhaps, rustled the bushes and Billy Bascomb, gripping Prez by the arm, nearly lifted him off the ground, jerking his head around. Billy’s eyes narrowed and bored into bushes near me. He slowly raised a palm.

  “Wait …” he said, and Jack Bascomb, his arm wrapped around Perry’s head, forcing him along that way, stopped.

  “Thought I heard something.”

  “A rabbit …” Jack said. Billy searched in my direction—too high, thank God—but the moment hung there until he turned away.

  I’d seen those two over the years. Billy’s wife, Mary Jo, sometimes came by the Montgomerys’ for a handout. Everybody knew Billy didn’t hardly work if he could help it. They’d gotten to our woods and come upon Prez and Perry. I felt a stab of anger. I told those boys to stay out of the woods, and now their hardheadedness had gotten them square in this situation.

  “Mister, honest—I didn’t do nothing,” Prez wailed.

  “You comin’ with us anyway. Now stop that blubbering. We takin’ you to jail for aidin’ and abettin’.”

  “We didn’t do nothin’,” Perry cried, sounding as if he was lying.

  “Shut your mouth,” Billy said through gritted teeth. “You was up to somethin’ and we all know it.”

  For a frantic moment, I nearly rushed out from my hiding place, but fear paralyzed me. With repugnance, I saw Perry’s whole shirtsleeve had been nearly ripped off. There was a bloody gash on his arm. I buried my face in my hands and squeezed my eyes tight, willing myself not to make a peep until their sounds faded away completely. Perry was hurt. I stood up, my legs nearly buckled, but I knew I had to get home.

  I ran to the clearing and the bright afternoon light. There was Auntie’s house. No cars, no sign of anything amiss. I looked down toward Mama’s. Nothing to see but our small house vacant and alone.

  “That you, Francie?”

  “Yes, Auntie.”

  “Where you been?” She was struggling toward me, holding on to the wall. “Perry ain’t come back yet with that headache leaf. Can you go down to Nola’s and get me—”

  “Auntie, they got Perry and Prez!” I blurted out before I could think about fixing up the words a little first.

  “What?” Auntie continued toward me.

  “Here, Auntie.” I took hold of her and tried to direct her back to bed, but she pulled away and pushed past. She almost fell into the kitchen chair, then sat for a moment, catching her breath.

  I paced a little, not wanting to tell her.

  “Francie, what you sayin’? Out with it.”

  “I was in the woods …”

  “What for?”

  “I had to do something—real important.”

  Auntie just stared at me, perplexed.

  “They were coming at me. And I had to hide behind some bushes …”

  “Who? What are you talking about?”

  “I seen the Bascomb brothers taking Perry and Prez out of the woods.”

  “Why would they be taking them anywhere?” Her face was full of confusion.

  I hesitated.

  “Francie, you tell me, now!” Janie woke up and began to cry from the bedroom. Auntie ignored her.

  “We left some food for Jesse Pruitt. It was my idea, Auntie,” I said quickly. “I had to wait until the sheriff come out of the woods and drove away before I could get the jars back—that’s what I’d been leaving—some of Mama’s canned goods. They’d see them with Mama’s labels on them and we’d get in trouble.” My words were coming out in a rush. “Perry and Prez were just supposed to do their work. I told them to stay out of the woods.”

  “Francie, I’m confused. What is it you’re sayin’ to me?”

  I sat down. “They got the boys because they think they were helping Jesse. The Bascomb brothers.”

  Auntie’s eyes grew big with horror. “They got those babies? Where they takin’ them?”

  “I don’t know, Auntie,” I lied.

  Auntie ran her hands through her hair and searched the tabletop. “Where they takin’ ’em!” she said, her voice rising with hysteria. Janie began to cry louder. Auntie’s face drained of color. “Francie, you get them into this?”

  I nodded weakly.

  “You did somethin’ that foolhardy?”

  I nodded again.

  “Where your brains, girl? Why not give them men an invitation to get mad at all the coloreds and burn us out just to make their point? Why not just put up a sign?”

  I began to cry.

  “Oh, my God … Where would they be takin’ ’em?” she whispered into the air, as if that was all she could manage.

  I looked away for a second. It was hard to bear the expression on her face. “They taking them to jail, Auntie,” I finally admitted.

  “To jail? Them two little boys? Was they hurt?” She asked this like she was afraid of the answer.

  I thought of Perry’s torn sleeve and his hurt arm, but I couldn’t bring myself to relate this situation to Auntie.

  “No’m,” I said, feeling worse for it.

  She slumped down in the chair and put her face in her hands. “How on earth am I going to get through this?”

  I was crying in earnest now. I cried for myself because this was my fault, I cried for Perry and Prez and what they must be feeling, and for Mama, who was gonna be real scared and mad—when she found out.

  Mama looked at me as if she hadn’t heard. I’d been pacing the room for the last hour and looking out the window up the road for the first sign of her. Auntie had all that time sat immobile at the table, her face in her hands.

  Mama now put her hand over her mouth, as if preventing herself from screaming out.

  “We gotta do something. We gotta do something quick. Come on.” She had taken off her town hat and set it on the table. And now, for some reason, she plucked it back up, plunked it on her head, and started for the door. Auntie went and picked up the now sleeping Janie and I followed her outside. But Mama stopped short at the bottom of the porch steps and said, “I don’t know what we can do.”

  “Mama,” I offered, “maybe Mr. Grandy can help us.” Folks were always looking to Mr. Grandy for help. He was smart, he had his own land, and he was there with his family rather than off working the railroad or up in Benson working away from his family. And he seemed to always know what was happening behind the scenes.

  Without a word, we made our way up the road toward the Grandys’.

  I could tell by his face when he opened the door that Mr. Grandy didn’t know what to think. We stood huddled there, crying on his front porch.

  “Lil … Lydia? What’s wrong?” Janie began to whimper as if on cue.

  Mama spoke first. “O.C., Francie done a stupid thing and now they got our boys.”

  This didn’t give Mr. Grandy any real information, but he motioned us inside. Mrs. G
randy and her daughter, Violet, who were sitting at the dinner table, stood up.

  “Lil, what you talkin’ about?” Mrs. Grandy said, coming forward and taking Mama by the shoulder. Violet helped Auntie into a chair, then Mama, for Mama seemed barely able to move at that point. She was stiff and her eyes were filled with fear. Violet went to get them both a drink of water. I started crying anew and Mama looked at me with disgust. The others took no notice of my personal misery. All were focused on Mama, and finally, too, Auntie with Janie in her arms.

  “You tell us, now,” Mr. Grandy said calmly. “You tell us what happened.”

  Mama took a deep breath and told them the story. When she finished, they turned their stunned faces to me. I looked down at my feet.

  “Sheriff was out here this mornin’,” Auntie added, “with a picture of that boy. Then Perry and Prez musta got it into their heads that they had to go get them jars of food out the woods before they were found—bringin’ trouble on all us.”

  “I told them not to, Mama,” I said, pleading my case. “I was going to take care of that myself. I knew I could do it without getting caught. But they didn’t listen.”

  “That ain’t the point, Francie!” Mama said, losing her temper, and I knew if we weren’t at the Grandys’ and Mama wasn’t so scared, I would have gotten a back hand across the face for sure.

  “So the sheriff caught ’em?” Mr. Grandy asked, putting Mama’s tirade at me on hold.

  “No,” Mama said. “The Bascomb brothers were in the woods, probably hopin’ they’d get a jump on them others the sheriff was roundin’ up. They goin’ after that reward money.” Mama put her head down on her folded arms. “I pray they don’t hurt our boys.”

  Auntie, who’d been looking back and forth between Mama and Mr. Grandy, watching how he was taking everything in, now said, “What can we do?”

  Everyone turned to him then. Even Mrs. Grandy and Violet. He seemed to be searching for an answer, while a grave silence filled the room. We waited. Mama’s eyes swept desperately back and forth between Mr. and Mrs. Grandy.

  At once, the rumble of what sounded like a hundred cars began to approach from the distance. Mr. Grandy went quickly to the window and looked out.

  “Kill that light,” he said.

  Violet leaned over the kerosene lamp and blew. The room instantly slipped into blackness.

  Headlights played on the far wall. Before Mama could stop me, I was at the window peering out at the procession moving along the edge of the woods. I flinched at the flurry of yelps and snarls from Mr. Early’s dogs. He was proud of those hounds. They were used to tracking. “They love it,” Prez had heard him bragging one time. “You see, nigras got a particular smell and they can find one and zero right in.”

  “Where’s my baby?” Mama said behind me. She was looking over my head, talking more to herself than to me.

  “What’s happening out there ain’t got nothin’ to do with those boys,” Mrs. Grandy reassured Mama.

  “That’s right,” Mr. Grandy agreed. “Them boys are probably in jail right now, gettin’ a good scare.”

  Mama didn’t answer. Her mind seemed to be on something else. Suddenly I felt her tense up. “Come on,” she said all at once. “We gotta get home.”

  Before I knew it, we were on the small back trail, rushing toward home, with the Grandys watching us from their back porch, knowing there was no changing Mama’s mind.

  “They could’ve found their way home, somehow,” Mama told us. “Could’ve learned their lesson and now they’re wonderin’ where we are.”

  With every step, our hopes grew. Until we came upon the dark house with not one sign of life. Still, we hurried up the steps with the hope that perhaps the trucks and dogs and loud, drunken men had scared the boys into darkness and quiet.

  Mama called out Prez’s name as she went through the door. Silence was the dismal answer.

  “They ain’t here,” Aunt Lydia said. Janie stirred in her arms as if she was disappointed, too. Mama wasn’t afraid of light. She lit the kerosene lamp on the table, illuminating the sad room.

  “What happened here?” she asked, pointing to the half-eaten cake sitting on the counter.

  “Wasn’t none of us, Mama. The sheriff and his deputy come by today while we were down to Auntie’s. They had a picture of Jesse to show us. They came down here and went right in our house—and just took what they pleased.”

  Mama listened without a word. Then she took the cake platter over to a bag by the sink and, with a knife, raked what remained into it. Every last crumb.

  “I’ll make another,” she said, but it was an empty promise. It had taken us long enough to save for the ingredients for the one she’d just thrown out.

  “Maybe they got away and are hiding in the woods,” Auntie said.

  Mama shook her head solemnly. “They wouldn’t be in no woods at night. They’re both scared of their own shadows.”

  Auntie started to stand then, just to do something, but Mama gently pulled her back down. “Please don’t get yourself worked up …”

  Auntie rocked and cried softly. “What are we going to do?” she said over and over.

  “We just gonna wait.”

  But our wait was disturbed by snarls and the stubborn yelps of Mr. Early’s excited hounds. Voices shouted back and forth for the next hour.

  That hour passed slowly and painfully. Several times I wanted to put my head down on the table. I didn’t dare. I was scared I’d fall asleep. Mama paced. Auntie wept with fear. From time to time, we joined hands and prayed.

  I must have slept at some point. The next thing I knew, there was the sound of tires driving slowly around the side of our house. Mama and Auntie were at the window just as I was lifting my head from the table.

  “What on earth …” Mama was saying.

  “What on earth …” Auntie repeated. I squeezed in between them and looked out.

  A shadowy figure sat behind the steering wheel of a long black car parked in our backyard. Something about it seemed odd. I squinted at the car window. Who was that? The door opened and Clarissa Montgomery got out and started for the door. Before she could knock, Mama had opened it and stood waiting, dumbfounded.

  “Clarissa,” I said.

  “I’ve got your brother and cousin in my uncle’s car,” she said simply.

  Mama rushed past her to the car. I stood there, peering into the night.

  “Where are they?” I asked.

  “In the back, on the floor. When I saw the men and heard the dogs, I cut my lights and told them to get down.” Clarissa looked over her shoulder.

  Mama yanked open the door and pulled out of the back seat, first Prez, then Perry. Frightened and huddled, they stumbled up the steps. Auntie grabbed Perry and drew him to her.

  “Mama, I’m okay,” he said, slipping out of her grasp.

  She grabbed him and hauled him into the house. Prez, between Mama and Perry, followed meekly. Mama settled them both at the table, then just stared down at them for seconds. She and Auntie took in their bedraggled condition. Perry’s shirt was torn, with only a scrap of sleeve hanging from the shoulder. His bare arm was wrapped in a dish towel. Blood showed through.

  “My God …” Auntie cried, gently touching his arm. “What happened to you?” Perry began to cry, his attention back on his sorry state.

  Prez was almost as bad. His hair was matted with leaves and his clothes were caked with dirt. He started sobbing, as if in sympathy.

  Finally, between hiccups, Perry managed to get out, “I cut it trying to get away from one of them Bascomb brothers.”

  “What happened?” Mama asked.

  “They was trying to haul us off to jail.”

  I looked over at Clarissa, who was surveying our front room. The sink pump, the kerosene lamp, Mama’s Diller’s Drugs calendar … She sat down without being asked and listened to Prez’s story as if she’d never heard it before. Auntie interrupted him. “Girl, how’d you drive your uncle’s car out here?
”

  “Prez told me a back way,” Clarissa said.

  “No. I mean, your uncle let you drive his car?” Auntie asked.

  “I waited until I knew he was asleep. Then I rolled it down the driveway.” Mama and Auntie studied her. “I saw the boys in the gazebo earlier in the evening, trying to hide, but I had to wait until everyone was asleep before I could go down and see what was going on.”

  She stopped and let that sink in.

  “What were you doing in the Montgomerys’ backyard?” Mama asked Prez. Prez always got tongue-tied when frightened.

  “We were hiding there.”

  “Prez—don’t try my patience. I know you were hiding there. Why? How?”

  “We were just trying to get the jars after the sheriff came out, so nobody’d get in trouble,” Prez cried. “Those Bascomb boys were gonna take us to jail!”

  I cut him off to try and salvage my good name. “And I told you to just do your work. You know I did.”

  He only glanced at me. He was more interested in getting his side over to Mama.

  “We decided to hide them instead. We hid them good, too,” he said to me in particular. “We dug a hole …”

  “But they run across us,” Perry added, “and they said we looked suspicious and stuff. Then they grabbed us. ‘Cept I got away for a minute, but I fell and hurt my arm. I scraped it real bad—else Jack Bascomb wouldn’ta caught me.” He looked over at Prez. “Billy Bascomb already caught Prez.” He took a breath.

  “Only cause I fell, too,” Prez said.

  Auntie, standing behind Perry, had been rubbing his shoulders. Now she leaned down and looked at him closely.

  “They threw us in their car, Mama. They said they were taking us to jail for”—he hesitated—“aidin’ and abettin’ a fugitive.”

  “They said all that, huh.” Mama was getting angry.

  “We got away when they stopped at the filling station.”

  “I think they let us get away,” Perry cut in.

  “Did not!” Prez insisted.

  “I saw ’em laughing at us when we ran.”

  “Then whyn’t you just walk on back, then? Tell me that!” Prez demanded.