The Day of Small Things

by Vicki Lane

  “Please, Granny Beck—one more time.”

  Granny finishes up her cornbread. She wipes her hands good on her apron. Then she takes up her rug machine and goes to poking the black strips into the burlap backing of the rug.

  “I’ll tell it, honey, but we both got to work fast now, while it’s yet light.”

  So I take up my rug machine and some of the red strips and begin to fill in the poppy outlines while Granny Beck tells her story.

  “It was almost a hundred years ago, in eighteen and thirty-eight, the army rounded up the Cherokee people who had lived in these mountains long before the white man had come. The soldiers burnt the Cherokees’ houses and fields, cut down their peach trees, and said that all the Injuns would have to go west where a new home was waiting for them. The people tried to fight back but there was too many soldiers with too many guns. So the soldiers herded the Cherokee people up in a bunch to drive them like cattle to a place in Tennessee from where they would commence the long walk.

  “Now, one of these Cherokees was John Goingsnake, who had been strong against the removal but when he saw it weren’t no use, he give in, for he had a young wife and a baby girl and he feared what would become of them was he killed in a fight with the soldiers. So John Goingsnake and his wife and baby girl was in with them folks being marched out of Carolina into Tennessee.”

  “Tell the names of the wife and the baby,” I say, not wanting her to leave out any part of the story. The steady sounds of our rug machines as we punch the strips into the tight burlap backing could be the sounds of the Cherokees tromping along and that thought makes the hair on my arms stand right up.

  Granny Beck keeps working. But she nods and says, “Bless me, how could I leave that out? The wife’s name was Nancy and the babe was called Rebekah.”

  “Like you,” I say and she nods again.

  “That’s right, honey, like me. Now, the Cherokees tramped along and it was a dreadful weary time. A few of them had horses and wagons but John Goingsnake and Nancy was afoot, leading a pack mule loaded down with all they owned and the little one riding in a basket at the side. The soldiers was all on horses and they made the whole gang step along right quick. It was terrible hard on the old folks and the little ones. And when some begun to fall sick, it was hardest of all on them. The soldiers piled the sickest ones into a wagon and it never got too full for every night when the wagon was unloaded, there would be two or three to bury. The Cherokees would dig the graves and sing over the dead, telling them they were the happy ones, to be staying forever in these green hills.”

  Granny falls quiet and swallows hard like there is a lump in her throat.

  “And then …” I say to get her going again.

  “And then came a day when Nancy awoke one morning, burning with a cruel fever and so weak she could hardly stand. ‘Don’t let them put me on the wagon,’ she said to her husband, and she staggered to her feet. By holding to the mule’s pack, she could just make out to stumble along. But soon she was plumb give out and John pulled half their goods off the mule—blankets and tools and anything to lighten the load so Nancy could ride. He put the baby on his back and they kept going, Nancy just barely able to hold on.

  “Now, they was being marched to Tennessee along an old road called the Catawba Trail and it followed the river here in Marshall County. In time, this same trail come to be the Drovers’ Road and now the railroad track sets atop it.”

  I have been through the woods down to the river though don’t nobody know this, and I have sat and watched the train go by on the other side. And now that I know this story, I can see in my head the poor Indians tromping along so sad and it makes me like to bawl to think of it. It was by the river that they camped that night …

  “… and when John pulled his wife off the mule, she hardly seemed to know it but he made her a bed on their blankets and brewed a little tea with some dried pennyroyal and peppermint leaves they had brought with them. The soldiers come round with a ration of dry biscuit and water and then they set up their camps in a ring outside where the Cherokee were.

  “John soaked some biscuit in water and put little soft bits in Nancy’s mouth but she didn’t have the strength to swaller. And before morning come, she died in his arms.”

  “Did John Goingsnake cry?” I ask though I know the answer. Thinking of the poor Injuns makes me want to cry.

  “No, he did not, though he had loved his Nancy better than ary thing. He sat there with one hand on Nancy’s cooling face, holding his sleeping baby and looking out across the river that was shining silver in the moonlight. It was the fall of the year—a dreadful dry season. He could see the rocks of the river just a-sticking up, looking most like stepping-stones all the way across the water. And that gave him an idea.

  “ ‘Nancy,’ says he, speaking low to her spirit which he knows is still about, ‘I mean to stay here in the mountains with you but to do that I’ll have to leave you to be buried by these others. If I get away, I vow I’ll come back when it’s safe and sing over your grave.’

  “And with that, he picked up the babe and strapped her to his back. She stirred and whimpered but didn’t wake, just drooped her head down heavy on John Goingsnake’s shoulder. All round, folks was sleeping hard, wore out with the walking they’d done. Even the soldiers who was meant to be keeping guard was setting down, dozing by their campfires. Then, quiet as a hunting cat, John Goingsnake creeps to the water’s edge and steps out onto a rock. The moon is making a path for him across the water and he hears a singing in his head as he steps to the second rock and then the third.”

  Raven Mockers

  Transcript of interview with Mary Thorn, traditional Cherokee. At Big Cove on the Qualla Boundary, 1947. Interviewer: C. L. Knight; translator: R. J. Driver.

  C.K.: What about the Raven Mockers? What are they?

  M.T.: They’re the worst kind of witch there is. Most folks don’t like to talk about them.

  C.K.: How can you tell if someone’s a Raven Mocker?

  M.T.: No good way—they can be man or woman. One thing is, they look old because they have so many lives on top of their own. They come around when someone is sick and torment him till he dies.

  C.K.: Why do they do this?

  M.T.: They eat the hearts of the people they’ve killed. That’s what keeps them alive—however many days or months or years that person would have lived if the Raven Mocker hadn’t killed them, that’s added to the Raven Mocker’s life.

  C.K.: Is there any way of stopping these witches?

  M.T.: Well, when they come in a house to a sickbed, they’re mostly invisible. They could be setting on the sick person’s chest and doing all manner of awful things and the others in the room would just think the sick person was having trouble breathing. There are some Cherokee Doctors who know spells to stop the Raven Mockers.

  C.K.: I heard the Raven Mockers can fly.

  M.T.: Oh, yes, they can have big wings and when they fly at night, there are sparks flying out behind them and a wild howling like a big wind.…

  Chapter 11

  The Story of John Goingsnake (continued)

  Dark Holler, 1931

  (Least)

  Granny stops in the middle of the story and looks to the sky where the light is starting to fade. “Least, honey,” she says, “reckon it’s time for you to do the milking? I thought I heard ol Poll bawling just now.”

  Granny Beck always likes to do me this way but I know she is just funning. “Granny Beck,” I say, “you can’t leave poor John Goingsnake and his little baby in the middle of that river. You got to finish the story—there’s plenty of time yet—please, Granny!”

  I go over to Granny and put my arms around her. “We got to get them safe, so that baby can grow up and learn about the Cherokee Magic, ain’t that so? Besides, I got three more poppies to finish.” I lay my cheek next to hers and wait.

  She hugs me tight. “All right, honey, we’ll finish up the story afore you do your milking.”

&n
bsp; I go back to my chair and Granny opens and closes her fingers a few times, then takes her rug machine and goes back to punching in the black strips. She picks up the story and now it is almost like she is remembering something that happened to her—not just a story someone told her.

  “Well now, John Goingsnake, he stood there in the middle of that broad river, wondering what to do. He could see rocks like stepping-stones to the other side but betwixt him and the next rock there was a stretch of deep rushing water. He studied the distance and knew it was too far to make a leap for. ‘No telling,’ thinks he, ‘how deep the water is here in the middle where it runs all the year. Strong as it’s running through this narrow channel, I fear was I to try to cross, the child and me could be swept away. Though,’ says John Goingsnake to hisself, ‘if me and the babe was took by the river, why, then we’d be with Nancy. Could be that’s the best thing for us.’

  “On his back, the baby stirred and made a little sound like she was a-feared, a little whining sound, and John Goingsnake stood there thinking on the meaning of that sound. A cloud passed over the moon and a hoot owl called and he studied on the meaning of them things too.”

  Granny looked over at me, real solemn. “That’s how Injuns do; they look fer meaning in everything they see or smell, everwhat they touch or taste or hear. And being as John Goingsnake was a Cherokee wise man, he was uncommon good at knowing what the world around him was saying. But just then, standing there in the middle of the river on that long-ago night, John Goingsnake was plumb bumfuzzled.

  “And then the moon come out and he looked down at that stretch of water at his feet and he was dumbstruck—for right there in front of him, where a minute before hadn’t been nothing but fast-moving water, there was a great almost flat rock with the water curling around it. Without stopping to think, John Goingsnake stepped onto the rock. And then a quare thing happened—the rock begun to move.

  “John Goingsnake stood there, bending his knees and leaning this-a-way and that to keep his balance atop that swimming rock. His baby was safe on his back and John Goingsnake looked down to see the moonlight and the water rippling round the soles of his boots. It seemed to him like a long, long time in happening but at last the swimming rock brought him close enough to the other side that he could jump for it. And that’s what he done—took a deep breath and leapt onto a big ledge where he fell to his knees.

  “When he got to his feet, he turned round just in time to see the rock what he had rode on sink out of sight and then and there he made a special song to thank the Creator for sending the swimming rock—”

  Just like I always do, I say, “Granny Beck, a rock can’t swim! I bet it was one of them great big turtles I seen near the river.”

  And Granny reaches over and smoothes my hair down and she says, like always, “Whatever it was, honey, it was Cherokee Magic—at least that’s the way I heard it. You reckon you could make a turtle carry you across the water?”

  She doesn’t wait for me to answer but goes on with filling in the black and I go back to punching in the red for the poppies. This is the scary part of the story, and even though I know how it comes out, I have chill bumps all up my arms as Granny Beck goes on.

  “Now, John Goingsnake didn’t stop to look back to see the campfires on the other side; he lit out up the riverbank and into the woods. There was a trail running along the river and turning up along a big creek but he knowed not to follow it for fear of meeting up with one of the white farmers that he knew must live up that way. Though it was nighttime, the moon was so bright that hunters and such might be traveling round.”

  I think of Mama walking up the road soon and hope that I can get the milking done before she gets back. But I will hear the end of this story first, even if it means a whupping.

  “So John Goingsnake set off, climbing up and up into the deep woods. He reckoned maybe he could lose hisself up there for a time, till the soldiers down at the river had moved on. Then maybe, he thought, he could make his way back to his home mountains, where he knowed there was others in hiding. He figgered he could travel along the ridgetops and be back in his own country before too long.

  “On and on he went, climbing through woods so steep that he was on hands and knees most of the time. It seemed to him that he’d been climbing for an hour or more when he came to a holler setting like a big bowl betwixt two ridges. A branch run down the middle and big old laurel bushes was thick and dark all above it. Just then the baby on his back stirred and begun to whimper and John Goingsnake knowed he would have to stop and feed her something and change out the moss in the rags he had wrapped around her little bottom—what we call hip-pens.”

  “How old was Baby Rebekah, Granny?” I know the answer, but this is part of the way we do the story.

  “She was not yet a year of age—and still a tittie baby, getting all her nourishments from her mama. Now that her mama was gone, what would John Goingsnake do?”

  I bust out with what comes next, wanting to hurry on to the good part. “John Goingsnake, he stops near a branch and gets him some water, and after he cleans the baby’s bottom, he pounds up some of that dry biscuit and mixes it with the water in a drinking gourd he’s carrying. And all the time, that baby’s fussing and squalling and he’s telling her hush. And he dips a finger in the biscuit mush and puts his finger in Baby Rebekah’s mouth for her to suck on. And at first she don’t like it and spits it out but then she begins to swaller some. And then …”

  I wait, for Granny tells this part the best. She laughs a little and goes on with the story.

  “And then, when the baby’s swallered all she will and John Goingsnake is putting her on his back, he hears a crunching and a crackling and knows that something is climbing up the way he come. His heart begins to thump for he fears the soldiers have followed him. High above the laurel, he can see that the sky is getting lighter.

  “Without waiting to see who it is coming towards him, John Goingsnake, with Baby Rebekah on his back, makes a run for the laurel and dives in.

  “The laurel bushes are old and their trunks are so twisty and close-growed that in some places John Goingsnake has to get down on his belly and slip along like a real snake to get through. Behind him he can hear voices. It sounds like two men and when he looks back he sees the glitter of brass buttons in the pale morning light that is sifting down through the dark leaves.”

  Granny’s fingers wiggle as she shows how the sun came down through the laurel leaves on that long-ago day. She sets back in her chair, the rug machine in her lap, and stares into the past. Her voice drops down low and scary for what is to come.

  “Now John Goingsnake is certain sure that it is the soldiers coming after him, and though he is in black despair, he keeps scrambling and sliding, deeper and deeper into the thickest part of that laurel hell. He moves along like only an Injun can do, making hardly a sound. But just then Baby Rebekah decides they are playing a funny game, and no matter how he tries to hush her, she keeps on laughing and babbling. And still John Goingsnake hears the voices following him … closer and closer and closer … till it seems they’re at his back.”

  I shiver hard. The light is going fast and I can barely make out Granny’s face. She is a voice coming out of the dark.

  “And then, along with the baby’s laughing and the growling voices coming up on him fast, John Goingsnake hears another sound. At first he thinks it is his heart, beating hard and fast in his breast, but then he realizes that the sound is coming from somewhere a little ways deeper in the laurel. And it is the sound of drums.”

  Chapter 12

  The Story of John Goingsnake (the end)

  Dark Holler, 1931

  (Least)

  Please, Granny, tell the rest of the story. John Goingsnake heard drums way back in the laurels and then what happened?”

  My last poppy is all filled in and I pick up some of the black strings and skooch over closer to Granny Beck and start to working on the background right next to her. I can’t hardly see
but it feels good to set so near and feel the warmth of my granny’s body through her skirt and breathe in her oak leaf smell.

  “Well, honey,” she says like she always does, “now, you may not believe this next part. But this is how John Goingsnake told it.

  “The drums was louder and louder and he followed the sound, sometimes crawling, sometimes walking crouched down, through the twisting roots and branches till he came to a kind of a clearing there in the midst of the laurels. Over to one side was a great rock cliff that reared through the green leaves and there down low was an opening—broad as two men though not but knee high—and it was from in there that the sound of the drums was coming.

  “John Goingsnake had heard the stories of the Yunwi Tsunsdi and he was most certain that this was one of their dancing grounds he was in the middle of and that those drums he was hearing was their drums. But he remembered how the old folks always said that the Little People was good to help lost children. ‘Well,’ thinks he, looking behind him where he could hear the soldiers getting closer, ‘I’ve got a lost child on my back and nowhere else to go.’ And thinking that, John Goingsnake crawled into the opening there at the foot of the big cliff.”

  This is my very most favorite part.

  “Tell what he saw, Granny,” I beg, and I jiggle her arm to get her to hurry.

  “It was only long years after,” she says, “when John Goingsnake was an old, old man and wandering in his mind, that he would talk about what he saw down there. And even so, it didn’t make much sense. He talked of being brought food—nuts and berries and honey—and of a red wolf suckling her cubs and Baby Rebekah nursing alongside of them. He said there was dancing and singing and sleeping and dreaming following each on each and that sometimes it was hard to tell the one from the other. He said it was always warm and dry and just light enough to see and that there was always a humming sound down there and Little Things moving around just at the edge of sight.