Snakes and Stones

by Lisa Fowler

  I don’t catch Daddy’s eye to let him know I’m going to run. I don’t tell the triplets I’m leaving, and I don’t tell Abraham. I just head straight for the door, grasping tight to my pocket and the paper money that’s shoved down inside.

  He didn’t lay eyes to me, but I know the man in the back of the store with Abraham and Daddy knows what I’ve done. My mind’s already got him hot on my heels, chasing me out of the store.

  Suddenly I trip and about fall flat on my face.

  Long as I live and breathe I’ll never forget seeing them cans with red and white labels and fancy black letters falling to the floor—one by one—and landing into a heap on the wide pine boards beside the table. Who knew cans could fall so slowly and yet so fast at the same time?

  If I could find a way to believe that God wasn’t going to open up the heavens, snatch me up by the neck, and sling me straight to the devil for stealing, I could pray for the floor to swallow me where I am.

  But I can’t.

  I can’t pray because I know in my heart that I broke one of them Ten Commandments the preacher back home in Kentucky hollers about. Now I’m not only in trouble with the man behind the counter in back of the store, and with the sheriff, and with my daddy soon as he finds out what I done, but I’m in trouble with God, and that’s the worst trouble of all to be in.

  Beneath the table I crawl, slipping and sliding over the cans, not quite sure whether to pick them up, or just go to running. Picking up the cans I knocked down is the respectable thing to do, but if I do, the man with Daddy and Abraham will have the time to see the money’s gone. If I don’t pick up what I knocked over though, someone might fall and get hurt. Oh, why does my mind always have to be troubled with these conflicting conflicts?

  The breath’s being sucked out of my body little by little and I can’t breathe any better than a dying woman with the death rattles, but I finally come to one conclusion. There’s nothing left to do but run.

  So I do—out the front doors of the store, down the street, and out of town toward the wagon.

  When I get close enough to lay eyes to the wagon, my mind goes to my metal box under my cot. Nobody knows where it is but me, and it’s a sturdy one too—found it up near the mines when I was a kid and kept it with me ever since. I keep my treasures in it, a couple of buttons, my found change, and well … now …

  I dart up the stairs, bolting the door behind me. The box slides easily from under my cot. I jerk the money from my pocket and cram it into the box, slam the lid, and shove the box all the way back, next to the wall. Then I sit, fold my hands across my lap, and wait.

  I wait for the sheriff.

  I wait for lightning to strike me dead and to come face to face with the devil.

  But mostly I wait for my daddy, knowing any second now he’s going to bang his fist against the door of this wagon and holler at me to come outside.

  Until they come though, there’s nothing to do but think. And wait—and let me tell you now, waiting is worse than running.

  I can’t believe what I’ve done.

  Oh, it was wrong, there’s no doubt about that, but then again, I just have to get back to my mama. I know if I can get to her she’ll give Daddy the dickens for snatching us up the way he did.

  She’ll straighten out Daddy’s mind and take all of us back to Kentucky. We’ll live there the rest of our days, loving each other, and being a real family.

  No. I had no choice about what I done, but still I wonder: If I done something against what the preacher preaches but it was for the right reasons, is it still wrong?

  They’re coming.

  Reckon the sheriff’s with them.

  I go to swallowing, trying my best to gulp down my fears. Trouble is, it don’t seem to be working. In fact it’s mighty hard to swallow down and suck in air at the same time.

  Listening close, I hear the babies rushing for the camp. It sounds like they’re laughing. Poor babies, they’ll change their tunes when they find out what I’ve done. They’ll be a-fierce disappointed in me for sure. Daddy and Mister Abraham are close too. There’s the heavy clomping of Daddy’s boots and Mister Abraham’s talking loud.

  The closer they get, the faster my heart beats. My mouth is so dry that if I didn’t know better I’d think I’d been sucking on a piece of stale bread with nothing to wash it down. Oh, if only I could suck in a deep breath I know I’d feel better but the air don’t seem to be going any farther down than the back of my throat.

  I jump up and unbolt the door so’s they can get in.

  Mama says if you do something you ought not do, best to own up to it and take your punishment.

  I hope the sheriff don’t come in shooting. Reckon going to jail is a might better than getting shot and meeting my Maker with thoughts of stealing fresh on my mind.

  “Chestnut?” Daddy hollers. “Chestnut, you here?”

  I sling wide the door expecting the sheriff and the man behind the counter, but they’re not here. And what’s more, Daddy don’t act like he knows a thing.

  Then it hits me.

  He’s acting like he don’t know what I done so’s I’ll come crying to him, begging and pleading for him to fix it and make it all better, same as a baby would do.

  Well it won’t work.

  I won’t come crying to him.

  I made my bed—just like he says about my mama—and I can lie in it same as anyone else who done something wrong.

  I peek through the doors and look around, expecting a lynching mob to string me up by my heels. They’re not here either.

  “Why did you run out so fast?” Daddy asks.

  “Yeah, you missed a good show!” says Filbert. “A whole table full of soup fell to the floor. Looked to me like the store owner was going to cry. If it wasn’t so funny, I’d almost feel sorry for him.”

  “Me too,” says Mac. “Until Daddy made us help him pick up every last one of them cans. Then I felt sorry for us.”

  They laugh—Daddy, Abraham, and Hazel too.

  But I’m not laughing.

  Matter of fact, I can barely stand my knees are knocking so.

  “Probably good you left when you did, Chestnut. We’re doing a show this afternoon and best no one sees you with us,” Daddy says. “Oh, by the way, I need a haircut. Need to look my best for the folks, you know. Pull the scissors from my tool box under the front seat of the wagon and come on over here and give my hair a trim.”

  “I can’t.”

  I say the words without hesitating.

  “What do you mean, you can’t? Go on now, get them scissors and be quick about it.” With a wave of his hand he motions me toward the box.

  “Daddy, please. Not right now.”

  “What do you mean? You’ve done this hundreds of times. Come on now, there’s no time like the present.”

  “But, Daddy—”

  “Chestnut Hill,” he interrupts with his hands planted squarely on his hips, “you’re wasting time and time is something we’re in short supply of. Quit your hesitating. What’s the matter with you? You’re acting plumb sheepish.”

  I don’t answer and I don’t dare look him in the eyes.

  No way I can tell Daddy the truth. No way I can tell him my hands are shaking worse than a hairless cat in a windstorm. I’m just sick, and I reckon what’s ailing me won’t get well anytime soon.

  Spending more time looking over my shoulder for the sheriff than watching where I’m headed, I trip over a stump and stumble all the way to the front of the wagon. I look back, expecting to be laughed at, but no one’s paying any mind.

  Daddy’s perching himself on a tall stump next to the wagon and shaving his cheek with a straight razor. An old tin can lid he’s buffed to a shine with shoe polish is propped on a rock in front of him—tilted just so to make a mirror.

  He’s stubborn as an ox and he’ll sit there all afternoon if he has to, waiting for me to get to his haircut. He needs a haircut all right. It’s long and shaggy and well over his ears and col
lar, and there’s one long wisp of gray falling limp over his left eye that he blows away with a puff of air from a twist of his mouth.

  I pull out the tool box and quickly rummage through it. There’s everything in here from a hammer to gauze bandages, from bolts and screws to an extra fork. There’s even a needle and spool of thread and a few tiny nails, but what I don’t see is scissors.

  “What’s taking you so long?”

  “They’re not here.”

  “What?”

  “The scissors are not here!”

  He jumps from the stump and walks to the front of the wagon, and he don’t take his time. With his hand he swishes around in the tool box, grabbing hold to the scissors, jerking them out of the box, and waving them through the air over his head.

  “What’s this, Chestnut?” he yells, half his face still covered in mug shaving cream.

  “Scissors?”

  “Scissors!” Daddy shakes his head like a dog slinging off creek water. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, girl. Your mind is somewhere else besides here with the lot of us. Now come on over here and get to cutting. I’ve not got all day.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I walk up behind him and let out a long breath he can’t help but hear.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well then, quit your huffing and get to cutting.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I raise the scissors to his neck and clip, snipping more at the air than his hair.

  The first few snips are fine, even though my hands are trembling worse than Abraham’s, but along about the fourth or fifth snip, reckon I just got a little too close to Daddy’s head.

  Daddy roars.

  “Chestnut! You cut me! You’ve cut my ear clean off my head!”

  He slaps his hands to the side of his head and staggers over to the water bucket—blood spewing from between his fingers. Not a little bit of blood either—it’s a gusher!

  “Get my ear! Somebody pick up my ear off the ground!” he hollers, waving a finger around in the air to whoever’s looking his way.

  I throw the scissors into the grass and then I snatch handful after handful of elixir bottles from the side of the wagon, slinging them onto the ground, busting them to smithereens. I holler as loud as I can as I’m slinging and busting, “I told you I couldn’t do this right now!”

  I have to run.

  I’m not rightly sure where I’m running to. I can’t go back to town; the whole lot of them’s probably looking for me by now.

  But I can’t stick around here. From the looks of that blood, I’ve killed my daddy.

  18

  DO THEY HANG MURDERERS OR SHOOT THEM?

  Daddy’s dead, and I killed him.

  He made me a liar and I made myself a thief. Reckon it’s only natural that murder be the next step. Mama says if you give a body enough rope, it’ll hang itself. Reckon that’s what I’ve done for sure—hung myself by my own actions.

  My mind can’t shake off all the blood I saw spurting out and running down Daddy’s arm into his shirt sleeve. Never in my whole life have I seen that much blood. Well, maybe once, when Grandpa Hill killed that goat, but that’s a whole other story, and since just the thought of it makes my insides quiver, I’m not likely to tell it anytime soon.

  Seeing Daddy bleeding puts the fear in me. Just think, I’m the one that’s done him in for good.

  I run along the creek bank, far away from where Daddy’s set up camp.

  Filbert follows. “Chestnut! Chestnut, wait!”

  “Go back, Filbert!”

  “But, Chestnut, I—”

  “Go! Back!”

  He chases me for a bit, until I snatch a look over my shoulder and see him standing still with his chin hung down to his chest. It’s then that I reckon he’s given up and is turning back. I keep running though, until my legs feel like watery jelly.

  What are them babies going to say when they see the sheriff hauling their big sister off to jail?

  Do they hang murderers or shoot them?

  Thing for me to do now is get out of town—and fast—but how can I when he’s counting on me to get the triplets dressed proper and point out the doubters for the show? Then again, if Daddy’s dead, I reckon it don’t much matter, now, does it?

  If only Mama were here, she’d know what to do.

  But if Mama were here, I wouldn’t be in this fix.

  Still though, she’ll be a-fierce disappointed in me when they do track her down. When she hears I’m in jail she’ll cry her eyes out, especially when she finds out they’re gonna hang me for thieving and murdering.

  Just thinking about my mama brings pools of water to my eyes, but I swallow them back. No way I can sit here on the creek bank feeling sorry for myself, not when there’s a heap of planning to do.

  Oh, how I wish I hadn’t done it. None of it.

  Here I am, not but twelve, and I’ve already committed two of the don’t dos on the list of the big ten.

  “Thou”—that means me—“shall not”—that means don’t you dare do it—“steal.”

  Oh my, and then there’s the murdering part. Don’t kill! The Good Book can’t be more plain about that. What I done can’t be more wrong.

  When I saw that money drawer open and all that paper money poking out, why didn’t I just turn and run? Why didn’t I listen to the voice in my heart that reminded me stealing was wrong, instead of the one in my head that wanted the train ticket back to Mama?

  Reckon I’ll be joining my daddy—since I killed him, you know—in the place where they hand out payment for the wrongs we’ve done in this life. He’s probably facing down the devil right now, getting his just reward.

  Tired of running, I plop down on the creek bank and stare into the water. They’s a stiff wind whooshing through the trees and shuffling the puffy clouds around in the robin’s egg–colored sky. Sort of day makes a girl want to kick off her shoes and crawl her toes over mossy green rocks in icy waters up to her knees. The kind of day just right for threading a slimy, fresh-dug earthworm over a rusty hook, slinging it over into the water, and coaxing a speckled brook trout onto the line, and later, tossing it into a black, wrought iron skillet just for frying up crispy, and eating—if a girl had nothing but time on her hands and a clear conscience, that is.

  From out of nowhere it seems, Filbert stomps up behind me, huffing and puffing, sucking in air, and coming close to scaring the evil clean out of me.

  “Chestnut?”

  “Filbert, you scared the life out of me. I told you to go back.”

  “You … ain’t … my …” He’s leaned over with his hands propped on his knees.

  “Stop. Just stop. Sit down and catch your breath.” I reach out, take his hand, and jerk him down beside me.

  He props back on his elbows and it seems like forever before he catches his breath. When he finally does commence talking again, I’m wishing he was still panting and unable to talk.

  “Chestnut, you hurt Daddy.”

  “What? What did you say?”

  “You hurt Daddy.”

  Hurt! He said hurt, not killed! I let my body go limp trying not to let on to Filbert that I thought I’d done Daddy in.

  “Why?”

  “Huh?” I ask, fishing around for more time so’s I can answer his question right proper.

  “Why did you hurt him?”

  I stare across the water into the bushes on the other side.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

  “All he wanted was a haircut, and you cut his hair all the time.”

  I shrug. “I know, it’s just that my hands was shaking so. I told him I couldn’t cut his hair right then but he made me. I wouldn’t hurt him on purpose, Filbert.”

  “You sure?” His words ain’t matching up with his look. His words say he thinks I’m lying, but his look says, “Can I have a puppy, please?”

  “What do you mean? Of course I’m sure. What kind of a question is t
hat?” My face is as hot as a fresh-pulled log from a fire.

  He kicks off his shoes. “Well, I just wondered.” He runs toward the creek. “’Cause it seems to me like you been mad at him for a long time.”

  “Roll up your pants before you get in that water!” I yell.

  If looks could kill, now he’d be the murderer.

  “So, are you mad at Daddy?” he asks, splashing in water up to his waist, tossing it by the handfuls over his head.

  The trouble with Filbert is he’s too smart to forget things, and I can’t take his mind off conversations like with Hazel and Mac.

  “I’m not mad.” I say it, but I don’t believe my own words.

  Filbert pulls up rocks from the creek bottom and flips them across the top of the water, trying his best to make them skip, like Daddy can. After a while he spurts out another question. One I don’t rightly know how to answer, leastwise not without thinking about it something fierce first.

  “Do you like Daddy?”

  I swallow down the lumpy mess in my throat. How do I answer a question like that? How can I tell a seven-year-old all I’m feeling about his daddy, the same daddy he looks up to and respects? Even if I could get the words out of my mouth, no way he would understand.

  “What? Of course I—”

  “’Cause I don’t think you do.” He spits out a mouthful of creek water. “I mean, you don’t ever smile at him and you don’t even say nice things to him.”

  For the first time, I realize my little brother’s got wisdom in his head that’s way past his years. Matter of fact, he’s putting the fear in me because I’m thinking maybe, just maybe, he’s a whole lot smarter than me.

  “Filbert, you don’t … I mean … well … oh, forget it. You wouldn’t understand. You’re too young. We shouldn’t be talking about this anyway. It’s adult stuff.”

  “Maybe, but you ain’t an adult. You’re a kid, same as me.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  “Am not!”

  “All right, you two, that’s enough.”

  It’s Daddy. He’s come up behind us, and for once I’m happy he’s here. Least I know for sure I’m not a murderer.

  I reckon he’s here to bring us back to the wagon, but I’m not going. Leastwise, not yet. I hang my head and look away, wondering how much of our conversation Daddy’s heard.