by Vicki Lane
“I was aiming to do that right after I brought Granny Beck some breakfast,” I say but Granny speaks up.
“Do like your mama says, Least honey. I ain’t a bit hungry just now.”
So I pull on an old coat that used to belong to Fairlight, then take the little hatchet from Mama and go out to the woodshed and set in on the pile of branches and trimming that is there. I can hear them quarreling back in the house and I bring the hatchet down hard, pretending that …
But then I remember the Threefold Law.
“Now, this ain’t from my granddaddy’s teaching,” Granny Beck told me back when I asked couldn’t she use some Cherokee Magic to stop Mama being so angry all the time. “No, this is something a granny woman I used to know told me. That old woman, for she seemed old to me at the time, me being not yet thirty and her well past the half-century mark …”
Granny Beck stopped in her talk and looked down at her hands. “Law, I remember how I used to wonder what it would be like to be old and how I’d think that I’d as soon die young before I went to getting all wrinkled and ugly.”
“You ain’t ugly, Granny Beck!” I cried and flung my arms about her and rubbed my face against her cheek. “And I like your wrinkles—they make you look all soft and … and loving. Not like—”
And there I’d stopped but Granny Beck hadn’t seemed to notice.
“No,” said she, “the Threefold Law weren’t Cherokee teaching but it seems to me that it might hold for Cherokee Magic and granny woman charms and just ordinary living too.”
“What is it then?” I asked, thinking it must be a mighty strong piece of magic.
“It’s something like the Golden Rule that the preachers always love to talk about, and it’s something like the Bible where it says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. What the Law says is that whatever you do to someone else, whether for good or for bad—that thing you did will come back to you threefold.”
Chapter 16
Young David
Dark Holler, Fall 1936
(Least)
A full moon lights my path as I walk slow and careful among the Quiet People to the place where Granny Beck is. The mound they heaped over her in January has flattened out till it is just a little swelling on the hogback ridge, and when I lay down and press my face to the red dirt it still holds a mite of the sun’s heat. I lay there in the silver moonlight and I pretend that it is her soft old cheek against mine.
It’s a bare, mean grave, with naught to mark it but the circle of smooth rocks at the head. When the pain of my loss was still raw, I hauled them, one at a time, up the steep path from the river down below—the aching of my arms and legs not nigh the hurt in my heart.
Five rocks, one for each year I had her with me. Just a speck of time in her seventy-five years of life but for me it seemed like always and I had begun to forget the bad times afore. With her I was like a babe newborn, learning and growing under the nourishment of her love.
My Granny Beck taught me to read and she taught me the old ways, but, more than that, she taught me how it was to be loved—and how to love someone.
There weren’t never none of that with Mama. When I was little, I just took it for the way things was but after a time I begun to think there must be some bitter failing in myself. Granny Beck showed me different.
“Granny Beck,” I whisper, breathing in the night smells—the fallen leaves, wood smoke drifting up from chimneys somewhere, the rank musk of a fox—“Granny Beck, it’s the Hunter’s Moon—a fine clear night—and I’ve come to visit with you again.”
Her greeting brushes my face like a falling leaf and in my head I feel her welcome, soft as milkweed down. The Quiet People don’t need to speak, no more than a sunrise or a tree needs words. They all have the same way of getting in amongst your thoughts so that you take their meaning. But still and all, it comforts me to talk out loud to them.
Five years was long enough for Granny Beck to pass on the things she wanted me to know—the uses of the trees and plants, the moon’s ways—the paths she walks and the different names she goes by, and a world of old songs and spells, the same as Granny had learned from her own mama—Rebekah Goingsnake Godwin. And the family story with the names—the story Mama don’t want known for fear of being called a half-breed.
“I tell it over every night, Granny Beck, so the names’ll not be forgot and so I’ll always remember where the Gifts come from.”
I sit up and make myself comfortable there in the moonlight, with one hand flat on her grave. The small rustlings of the woods creatures, the soft beat of the owl’s wings as it hunts, the lonesome howl of a faraway dog—each sound comes sharp and clear. Lifting my face to the moon, I wrap myself in her chill light and begin the old story once again.
“This was the way of it. Back in eighteen and thirty-eight, John Goingsnake, son of Yellowhammer, and his wife Nancy and their baby Rebekah was passing through these parts along with a sight more of the Tsalagi—which is their real name though the white men call them Cherokee—on the Long Walk to the West. When Nancy took sick and died, John grabbed that little baby and ran and hid so as not to have to leave these mountains that he loved.
“John and Rebekah stayed hid for seven years until a kind family named Godwin took them in. And when Rebekah grew up, she married Duvel Godwin and they had a little girl and they called her Little Beck, and Little Beck, she grew up and married Jed Thomas and they had a baby girl and named her Sophronia—”
I hush, for of a sudden, everything has gone quiet. All them little sounds of the night critters going about their business has stopped and the stillness is loud in my ears. I think that a bobcat or a fox must be lurking nigh, scaring the others to silence, and I stand up slow to cast my eyes around the burying ground.
Over on the far side where the big oak stands, I see what looks like someone standing half-hid behind its great trunk. But the shape don’t move and I begin to think it’s just my eyes playing tricks on me as the moonlight sifts down through the near-bare branches of the old tree.
In all the times I’ve come up this way to talk to Granny Beck—and I come on every full moon—I ain’t never seen another living soul here at the burying ground. The first thought that hits me is that it’s Mama, that she’s followed me—but then I tell myself it ain’t likely. Mama always drinks her tonic after supper and sleeps hard, never knowing where I go or what I do of a night.
I stand watching and squinting my eyes to see if I can make out what it is I’m seeing and all of a sudden there is a rush of soft wings and the high startled squeak of some little critter just nigh the big tree. I see the glint of metal in the moonlight and the shape jumps and says “Lorda-mercy!” all in one big breath like it was scared out of them.
“Who are you?” I call out and take a few steps towards the oak. Mama has taught me to stay hid whenever there’s strangers nigh and she has told me of the terrible things that can happen to girls. But all around me I can feel the Quiet People listening and telling me not to fear.
Everwho it is stands stock-still and don’t make a sound as I come closer and closer, putting one foot in front of another, slow and careful. And then I see that it ain’t but a boy. He is bigger than me and has a shotgun at his side, but he’s not no man, not by a long ways.
“I asked who you are,” I say, pointing a finger at him, “and why for are you up here in our burying ground?”
He walls his eyes at me, showing the whites all around, and when he tries to answer, the words won’t hardly come.
“S-sorry,” he gets the word out at last and I see that he is all a-tremble. “I didn’t mean no disrespect, ma’am.” He is beginning to back away from me as he says, “I’ll just slip away quiet-like and let you get back to your rest. Sorry.”
I haven’t never seen a boy my own age, except one time when a man and his son come to buy a heifer off of Mama. She made me stay in the house whilst they was dickering but I peeked out the window and seen them plain. That boy was spo
tty-faced and greasy-haired and he was all the time spitting. But this feller is as pretty a one as you could wish. He looks like the picture of Young David what was in Granny Beck’s Bible—David what slew Goliath.
“Where you going?” I ask him and hold out my hand. “Why don’t you stay a while and talk to me.”
He draws back and I remember what Granny Beck told me once—how some folks won’t walk in graveyards at night for fear of the dead people getting them. I have to stop myself from laughing as I watch his eyes getting bigger as my hand gets closer.
“You think I’m a haint, don’t you?” I grab his arm and he jumps but then he looks closer at me and a big smile makes him look even prettier than the Young David.
“Naw, I was just funning with you—I can tell you ain’t no ghost. But how come you to be up here?”
It is the nicest thing to be talking to someone. I have been awful lonely without Granny Beck. Lilah don’t hardly ever come to see me no more and Mama keeps a close watch over me by day.
Before I know it, him and me are setting in the moonlight and talking like one thing. He tells me he is out hunting and I tell him where I live and that my mama don’t let me mix with others because she says I ain’t right in the head.
“You seem just as smart as anyone,” says he. He smiles at me so nice and I remember back to not long afore Granny Beck died. I was outside and in the house, I heard her and Mama fussing. Then Granny Beck hollered out, “Sophronia Rushell, you had ought to be ashamed of the way you’ve done that young un. There ain’t nary thing wrong with her but ignorance and I aim to see that she has her some kind of a life beyond staying here and doing your bidding day in and day out.”
I remember puzzling over them words and trying to understand why Granny Beck was so ill at Mama. But I never got the chance to talk to her about it for that very night she took sick and went to vomicking. Mama said it might be catching and I had to sleep in Mama’s room so she could stay in with Granny Beck, but in spite of Mama tending to her day and night, Granny was gone in three days. I never even got to say good-bye.
Chapter 17
Snowflower Kitty
Dark Holler, Spring 1938
(Least)
I brung you something to remember me by when I’m gone.”
Young David is waiting, like always, under the big oak, and when I run to him, he holds out a honeysuckle basket with a lid on it. I shake my head no for I don’t want him to leave.
“Now, listen here, Little Bird,” he puts a finger under my chin and lifts my face to his, “I told you it won’t be such a very long time. Working on the roads with the WPA, I can make cash money—put something by and when times is better, I’ll walk up to you unses’ front door and tell your mama I aim to marry up with Miss Least. But I have to go where they send me and I’ll not be able to come back for our full moons.”
It has been almost two years now since I first saw him, and on every full moon, except when it was bitter cold or storming, I have made the climb to the graveyard to visit with Granny Beck and he has always been here. But he won’t be here no more, not for a dreadful long time.
I trace the shape of his face with my fingertips and feel the roughness of his whiskers. He has cut his hair shorter since that first time I saw him and he looks like a full-growed man now. I have learned his body and its ways as he has mine and this is why he says we must marry.
“I have done my best,” says he, “to keep from getting you with child but it’s awful damn hard on a feller, denying himself every time. And sooner or later …”
He grabs at my hand to stop it in its wandering and holds it between his. “Don’t you see, Least? I want us to do this right. It won’t be so very long—I promise I’ll be back, time the snow flies.”
Down the slope towards the river, there is a kindly scooped-out place where a wet-weather spring has made a little pond. On this warm night, the peeping love songs of the frogs fill the air, making such a commotion that it is hard to think. I throw my arms about his neck, hugging him hard as I can, and we fall together onto the thick spring grass at the edge of the woods.
Later on, when we are laying all sleepy and happy on the old quilt I always bring, I hear a kind of rustling and scratching. It is coming from the little basket which is setting over on the tree stump with our clothes.
“They’s something scratching at your old basket,” I say, running my bare foot up his leg, “maybe it’s a mouse going after the candy.”
Several times he has brung me candy from the store at Gudger’s Stand—peppermints, mostly, but one time it was chocolate-covered peanuts with some kind of sweet white sticky stuff in with the nuts. That was the best thing I ever tasted and I feel sorry that I acted so hateful when he tried to give me the basket.
“Might could be a mouse,” says he, skittering his fingers along my belly. “Why don’t you look and make sure?”
I get to my knees and reach for the basket, which is heavier than I expected. When I pick it up, there is a funny little crying sound and the basket tilts to one side. All of a sudden, the lid lifts off and a tiny white face with two pointy little ears looks out at me. It opens its pink mouth wide and cries mew, mew.
It is the prettiest pure white kitty you ever saw—prettier even than the ones in the Baby Ray book. And around its neck is a shiny red ribbon. It mews again and I hug it to me.
“Reckon she’s hungry. Look over there in my overhauls’ pocket—they’s some sausage meat twisted up in a piece of paper. When you get her home, you might give her some milk—she ain’t been off her mama but a few days.”
He tells me how he traded with a neighbor—a half-day’s work—for this kitty. “She ain’t of the common breed—she’ll have real long fluffy fur when she gets her growth,” says he, stroking the kitty’s little back.
He is so proud of what he’s done—I can’t tell him that Mama hates a cat most as bad as a snake and I will have to find some way of keeping the kitten hid.
“What will you name her?” he asks, and I feel the kitty’s claws like tiny needles scratching against my breast.
I think of how long it will be before we’re together again—till snow flies, he said. I look at the kitty and the moon shining on her white fur and I say, “Her name is Snowflower.”
When we have loved again, he says he must go now to make it home by morning but I hang on to him till he says, “Now, Little Bird, don’t you take on so. I got to do this.”
He kisses me again and takes Snowflower from the basket where she has curled up to sleep some more and lays her between my breasts. He pushes me down real gentle and pulls one side of the quilt over me and the kitty.
“Just you close your eyes and lay there and think of the happy times to come, my little sweetheart,” he says. “Remember, look for me at your door when the snow flies.”
And he brushes my cheek with a kiss so light that it could have been one of Granny Beck’s.
I listen to the sound of his steps going away until it is swallowed up by the calling of the little frogs. I know that I should dress myself and head for home to find a place to hide Snowflower, but it feels so nice here on the old quilt with the smell of him and the softness of Snowflower that I close my eyes and dream of winter.
But it ain’t winter and it ain’t dark no more when my eyes open. The sun is already over the ridgetop and the Snowflower kitty is licking up the last crumbs of sausage meat from the greasy piece of newspaper. I jump to my feet and pull on my clothes as fast as ever I can. I am trying to think what to tell Mama—I could say that I was out hunting branch lettuce or ramps but she will want to know why I didn’t do the milking first.
And where can I hide Snowflower? I push her back in the basket and fasten down the lid. Then I grab up the quilt and make it into a loose bundle with the basket at the middle.
My mind is working hard as I hurry down the path towards home. If I can keep the kitty hid till the next time Lilah comes, maybe Lilah will take her and keep her safe. There j
ust ain’t no way—
As I come around the last bend before the barn, Mama is standing in the road, the full milk pail in her hand.
“Mama!” I say, “I was up the mountain, hunting for some ramps and …”
Something about the way she is looking at me chokes the lie in my throat. She sets the milk pail down real careful and takes a step forward.
The slap rocks my head back and brings the tears to my eyes. I stand still, my arms around the quilt that is hiding my Snowflower as Mama circles around me.
“And did you find you some ramps? Got a whole poke of em? So many you had to take a quilt to tote em back?”
She pokes a bony finger at the quilt and she circles and circles, poking at the quilt each time she passes. I feel her sharp black eyes seeing right into me. Her hair, which has gone all white in the past few years, is sticking out ever whichaway, and somehow she don’t look like herself.
I remember the story Granny Beck used to tell about the old woman called Spearfinger and a cold feeling runs down my back.
“What’s in here, you huzzy?” The finger stabs again at the quilt and she snatches it from my arms. The basket falls to the ground and the Snowflower kitty looks out but Mama don’t see the kitty for she is holding up the quilt and peering close at it. She squinches up her eyes and brings the quilt up to her face. I reach down quick and push the lid of the basket shut, then pick it up and hold it close while Mama sniffs at the quilt, like a hound looking for a trail.
All at once she makes an ugly spitting sound and flings the quilt from her.
“You nasty, lying little huzzy!” she cries. “Do you even know the name of this feller you been sneaking out of the house to lay up with?”
I tell her I call him Young David and he is coming back when snow flies to marry me but she only laughs a hateful laugh.
“You believe that, do you? That old woman filled your head with so much moonshine, you’ll believe most anything. When was the last time you had your monthlies?”