“Miz Subie say I could work out an understanding with chiggers, mosquitoes, and whatnot; then I wouldn’t need funky bear grease or nasty herbs,” Redwood said.
“I could use such a fine trick too,” Aidan said.
“Can’t get it to work for myself. Don’t know if I could do it for someone else. I think you gotta work out your own understanding.”
“I suspect that’s true.”
“What you thinking back there all this time?”
His steady stroke slowed. “It’s a new year.” She felt his hot breath against her sweaty neck. “I thought you might could do a spell for me so that tying the knot would go better this time than last.” He gulped more air. “Help get me right.”
“Oh, did you now?”
Aidan drank too much, and that brought on an evil temper. Not in front of Redwood, but she’d heard wild stories of him cussing, busting up furniture, breaking down doors, and punching men to bloody pulp. Say something out the way to him, no telling what he might do. No woman wanted to stay married to that.
“Miz Subie the one to go to for miracles,” Redwood said.
“That bad, I need a miracle?” Aidan said, mad or hurt or both.
Why was she always throwing dirt in a wound? “I’m just a beginner.”
“Ha! You the one snatching storms.”
“That one time, which don’t mean I can do everything! I caught it with you. Don’t really know how we did that.” She turned ’round. He still looked wounded, despite her offering him credit. She couldn’t stand that. “I’ll do what I can,” she murmured.
“Thank you, Ma’am.”
Aidan guided the canoe into a side stream that was nothing more than a trickle of mud. She stuck her finger in and touched bottom. Snarled roots scraped at the boat — there was hardly any water to paddle. Aidan had just the right touch though. After half an hour the stream forked into three directions. and they came to a hummock that was more sizeable than the mounds of floating grass they’d passed. Perched several feet off the ground in the center of this island was a hut with a cypress log frame and palmetto thatch roof. Guarding the entrance was a tupelo branch strung with colored glass and a stump carved into the head of a bear. All ’cross the island, every color of wild flower greeted them with waves of scent, spicy and sweet. Poles carved in the shape of lightning bolts with tattered flags on top marked the four directions. Two otters barked a welcome and dove in the water.
“They followed us all the way.” So much beauty made Redwood’s heart pound. Tears clouded her eyes as she turned to Aidan. He navigated the boat into a rickety u-shaped pier that crawled out the mud onto more solid ground.
“You know, I’m glad we’re friends too,” he said, cheeks pink with embarrassment.
“Did you do all this?” She wiped her eyes quickly.
“Yes, Ma’am.” He was proud. “Been coming here since I was thirteen. Hauled in all the fixings, a bit here, a little there.” He held the boat still, and she stepped ashore, unsteady on her feet.
“Why you hiding such a place in the middle of a dank stream?”
Aidan shrugged, hopped onto the pier, and tied off the canoe. “You hungry? I got a few green apples in my pack.” He strode by her, his banjo buzzing against his back.
“I’ll eat when you eat.” Redwood stopped at the bear head. She touched its nose with her fingers. “Going without food make your spell stronger, right?”
“You don’t have to go hungry, too.”
“I want to start over with you. I’ll do what you do. I’ll help you clear out last year’s dirt. I’ll… Watery crossroads is a good place to begin. Who all we got to forgive?”
“Everything apart from rape and murder.” Aidan shuddered.
“That’s a tall order.”
He set down his things and looked her up and down. She held still, staring back at him, trying to see what was what, trying to see who he really was. Powerful spirits were right at his shoulder, but she couldn’t make out how they looked, whether they brought good signs or ill ones. She reached her storm hand to his heart and touched him before he could back away.
“Let’s not fight no more,” she said.
He eased her hand away from his chest, but kept it clutched in his. “The Master of Breath blows fire through your spirit,” he said and led her toward the hut.
“Mama used to say, you a hoodoo child. You can do a spell to make the world you want.”
“You sound just like Miz Garnett.” His chest heaved saying her mama’s name.
“You miss her too, don’t you?”
“I got too many people to miss.”
The ground rolled under their feet. They teetered and pitched and got all tangled up in one another. With the earth still quaking, they finally lost balance and fell onto springy moss. Redwood giggled. Aidan was so still and solemn underneath her that she tickled his chin, ’til laughter rolled through their bellies, ’til tears flooded their faces. Redwood didn’t know why she was crying. Aidan looked surprised at his tears too. He shook his head, flinging salty drops this way and that, and then he hugged her close.
“Josie tried to hoodoo me into marrying her. I ain’t bound, but I won’t run off.”
“But if Josie be working a trick on you and you don’t really love her —”
“I gotta forgive her and do right like the spirits say, so —”
“So, I gotta forgive everybody for being scared of me and George for leaving me and being mad all the time?”
“Yes,” Aidan replied soberly.
“I guess if you can do right by Josie, well, I’ll try.” Redwood stood up and offered Aidan a hand. The quizzical expression on his face made her feel foolish, but before she could snatch her hand away, he gripped her palm and she pulled him up.
The broom was just raising dust and not cleaning anything. Redwood wanted a bucket of fresh water, a good brush, and some of Miz Subie’s lily of the valley soap. She surveyed the wind swept room. Heavy canvas curtains (walls?) were rolled up into the rafters. Wood was arranged like a wheel in a stone fire pit at the center of the hut — a chickee, Aidan called it. Bright new banners at the four directions flapped in a stiff breeze. A storm was coming and blowing dirt over everything again.
“I’m not doing no good here,” she said.
The colored glass on the tupelo branch tinkled sweet music.
“I need to get new bottles for the bottle tree…All the evil spirits they done caught, just busted ’em up.” Aidan was on the roof repairing a hole.
“No good a-tall.”
“What you say?” He jumped down behind her. “Been all alone here the other times,” he said. “It’s…it’s better with you.”
“So tell me that tale your daddy used to tell when you was a boy up in the Blue Ridge Mountains.” Aidan’s stories were almost as good as Uncle Ladd’s, but she always had to coax and plead and beg for any little thing. “No more stalling. You promised.”
Panic painted his cheeks.
“It’s our secret,” Redwood whispered in his ear, “and you know I can keep it.”
Aidan stared at her again as if trying to look through her skin. “I wrote the story down in my journal, how my daddy used to tell it.” He pulled a red leather book from his shoulder bag. “Let me read that to you, so I get it right.”
A Time Before This Time
Trembling Earth was a mighty warrior, tall like the mountains and wise like a river searching from the deepest forest to the sea. Born on a floating island in a southern swamp, he took the name Okefenokee or Trembling Earth as we say nowadays. Beautiful tattoos told of valor and wisdom from bold youth into full manhood. He wrapped his long hair in a topknot. Arrows thrust this way and that through the silky weave called to mind an osprey’s nest. Trembling Earth’s bow, made from a supple sapling, was taller than most warriors, taller than the pale men who came at him with smoking fire sticks. No warrior, living or in legend, matched his strength or his courage. He shot an arrow up in the mist an
d it did not return, but flew to the ancestors, proclaiming all was in balance in the world.
For how long?
The day Trembling Earth’s dreamtime and lifetime crossed, the day of his destiny, was midsummer like today, the day of the green corn ceremony, the day to celebrate first fruits, the time to light a new fire and forgive what could be forgiven. Dawn was breaking, the sun a violet promise in the mist as Trembling Earth strode through the houses of his village to the temple dome. The sacred fire was cold from last night, its one cold night of the year. Old debts and grudges were put aside as villagers awaited the new flame.
Bright Spear, a War Chief who hated losing games to Trembling Earth, offered him medicine stones filled with the lightning that had shattered a tree. Bright Spear’s nostrils flared, his lips trembled. They’d caught him lying about his exploits in battle and warping other warriors’ bows before the games. Bright Spear wanted only another chance to fight and defeat real enemies, yet who would ever follow him again in war or even games? Instead of gloating, Trembling Earth gave him healing roots, bitter bark that eased old pain, and his mighty bow. Bright Spear tried not to accept the bow. Trembling Earth insisted. Was it not Bright Spear’s cunning that had saved them in battle many times? Would it not be so again?
Women’s talk and children’s laughter filled the air. Trembling Earth still felt the sting of his rival’s arrow in his thigh. He stumbled and limped as old pain flared. Moon Shadow, the woman he loved, loved another — Silver Fish. Who could deny it? Trembling Earth saw the lovers as he approached the temple mound. He offered them deerskin and precious dyes, then tried to smile on their happiness. They nodded as if his jealousy had never been; as if he had never chased Silver Fish into the sea; as if Moon Shadow had not thrust her body between Trembling Earth’s knife and Silver Fish’s throat. Trembling Earth turned away from the two lovers. That time was gone. No one should let yesterday use up too much of today.
Easy to say, hard to live.
Blue Eagle, the Peace Chief, wore egret feathers, black and blue pearls, and his face was painted ochre and vermilion. Trembling Earth stopped before him. Here was the true challenge of the day, of his life. Peace was the answer to his prayers. To save the people — all that they had been and could become — he must lead them from their beloved land to a new place, far from the pale invaders with their fire sticks and deadly sickness erupting on anyone they touched.
Once, long ago, Blue Eagle sang of finding a new land and making new allies, but these days he feared the War Chiefs who grew stronger with each successful raid on ancient enemies. Blue Eagle had lost his true power. The way of peace was muddy and confused. The people had turned a deaf ear to his song until he changed the tune and sang their fears. Just yesterday, Blue Eagle spoke against joining with foreign villages, against joining with ancient enemies who were not his people and did not speak his tongue, who did not know his dance or remember his ancestors. “A new enemy should not make us forget old ones.” He warned against traveling to distant lands filled with spirits no one would know how to appease. Blue Eagle said, “We should not leave the lush land of our sacred fire.”
Trembling Earth pulled the long arrows from his topknot and laid down his jagged stone knife. He asked all for forgiveness for the many wrongs he had done. He offered forgiveness to those who had wronged him. He gave meat and new corn to any who were hungry. He sang to those whose hearts ached with fear of tomorrow and offered the dream that had come to him whenever the moon faded to a ghostly shadow in the night sky. Many gathered to listen to Trembling Earth. He was a mighty warrior unafraid of death, and he loved the people.
“The battle for tomorrow requires cunning and wisdom,” he said. “In my dream travels, the people crossed the land and the small waters and they gathered with old enemies to forgive what could be forgiven and then together they made a long walk into the grassy water. There they lived together as one free people, istî siminolî, long after the invaders had come and gone.”
Blue Eagle said, “We are undefeated. Why should we run away like cowards?”
“Who do we vanquish? Villages who have few warriors left because they have fallen to the pale men with their fire sticks? And these brave few are covered in boils and pus and can barely run or raise a spear or bend a bow! We are not mighty warriors, only lucky fools who prey on weakness and disease that will come to claim us too.”
Blue Eagle tried to protest, but no words came to him.
Trembling Earth continued, “I will be a War Chief no more. Any who follow me in the last journey of my life, they follow peace.”
Trembling Earth’s mother had been a captive three times. A powerful medicine woman, she had escaped from enemy camps in distant worlds and, running through forests and swamps, always returned to the people. She said, “I will follow my son.”
Silver Fish, the rival he had tried to kill, and Moon Shadow, the woman he once loved more than life, said “We will follow Trembling Earth.”
Bright Spear turned to the other War Chiefs and said, “We have followed Trembling Earth many times in games and in battles, let us follow him into tomorrow.”
In a village house behind them, a newborn sang his first song.
Blue Eagle asked, “And if that place is the land of the dead?”
“We will die free people,” Trembling Earth replied and lit the sacred fire anew.
“Istî siminolî.” Aidan whispered. The journal trembled in his hands. “Free people.”
Night had fallen in the middle of his tale, and now black clouds rolled over the rising moon and stars. It was too dim in the hut to read. Aidan must have spoken the last words from his heart.
“What a beautiful story, like out a book.” Redwood was buzzing and tingling, as if lightning flared under her skin. “Istî siminolî.” She repeated Trembling Earth’s phrase. “Freedom always feels good in your mouth.” She could just make out Aidan as he nodded.
“Storying and thinking on the new year is a free feeling,” he said.
“When you’re spinning a yarn, you sound different, somebody else altogether.”
“I get my daddy’s voice in me.”
“Your daddy knew a lot of Indians up in the mountains?” she asked, hoping he’d tell more of where he come from, who his people were: Creek, Cherokee, Seminole?
“Uh, he sure did.” Aidan set the journal down. “Wherever you go in these United States, there are…Indian ancestors afoot, and, well, they come sometimes to talk to us who be living here and now.” He was holding something back, she could smell it, and here she thought they could tell each other anything.
“Wish I could hear that,” she said.
“They talk to everybody.” Aidan tweaked her nose, like she was a little bit, still. “Listen hard enough, underneath a sigh, at the end of a breeze, you catch an echo.”
“Were they wise and true?”
“No more than you or me.”
“But they got that long view.”
“Now they do. Cherokee Will says, we are the ancestors of generations yet unborn.”
“Yeah, but who ever listen to what he say?” She felt Aidan bristle, so she quickly added, “Couple generations out, nothing but lost souls.”
He snorted. “Do you really believe that?”
“Cherokee Will never let you forget he used to own colored folk. Well, his papa did, when Will was a boy, way back before the war.”
“Before white people stole the land and marched most of the five tribes to death on the way to Oklahoma. So all Cherokee Will got now is memory holding up his spirit.”
Lightning streaked ’cross the sky, and it was suddenly bright as day. Thunder rumbled. Dead stalks rode blasts of wind through the hut. The storm was fixing to roll over them. Aidan quickly unfurled canvas walls from the rafters and tied them off at the floor. He pulled a bedroll from under the rooftop too. The rain could have been a stampede of wild animals charging ’cross the meadow right at them. Redwood bit her fingertip, anticipating the wors
t. A hefty gust of the storm slammed into the heavy cloth. Buckets of water pounded against the roof, yet not a drip come through onto their heads. After several minutes of ramming in vain, even the wind backed off.
“Dead folk always leave something behind, a trail. They ain’t really lost to you,” Aidan said.
“I know. Like how Mama still come to talk to you sometimes.”
He winced and choked. Took a moment to get his breath in order. When he finally spoke he was hoarse. “Miz Garnett say, write yourself down, Aidan. Keep good counsel with your ownself. That’s a powerful spell, a hoodoo trick for what ails you.” Without another word, he raced out the hut, ’cross the shallow stream, and disappeared into the high grass meadow — gone before Redwood could blink the dark clear.
“You ain’t goin’ tell me where you going,” she yelled. “Or when you coming back?”
Rain beat against the roof and ran down the canvas walls in a steady rhythm. After ten minutes, not seeing nor hearing any sign of Aidan, Redwood tore off her itchy clothes and darted out into the downpour. The cool water cleared the last of her rash away. It felt so good she laughed out loud. Shivering in the chilly wind and fearful that Aidan might return any moment and catch her naked, she dashed back into the hut.
The darkness was so deep she almost fell in the fire pit groping for her pack. After rubbing her skin with oil, she searched for the clean blouse and skirt she’d stowed for the journey home. The clothes got all tangled up and inside out — enough to make you give up on getting dressed. She was glad Aidan was taking his sweet time out there.
“What’s he goin’ see in the dark?”
Aidan didn’t have to take forever though. She thought of George worrying on her in the middle of this storm. She was high and dry, and he was probably cold and soaked through and mad as the devil cursing heaven. She tucked the blouse in her skirt.
“Serve him right, but I forgive him.”
She oiled and brushed her hair, platting it carefully. After setting the swamp iris in the swirl of a braid, she sat by the stone fire pit to wait for Aidan’s return. Lightning flashed every few moments. In between booming thunder, owls hooted. A cat growled right outside the canvas wall, a big ole panther, not a shy bobcat. Redwood stiffened. Fear crept in the small of her back and slid up her spine. Something bigger still on the other side of the stream gurgled and grunted. Heavy footfalls shook the ground. The island rocked worse than a boat on the sea. She held her breath. The panther fussed and then took off. A bear poked his nose then a claw through the entrance. Might have been a gray scar on his cheek, a twinkling star.
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