Redwood and Wildfire

by Andrea Hairston

  Aidan’s hand shook as he tucked the card in his journal. “I’ll write on that soon.”

  “Good.” Redwood leaned against him. “Sometimes I open my mind so wide, I can feel myself in everything, dead and alive, yesterday and tomorrow.”

  “She sound just like her mama,” Eliza whispered.

  Everyone was dazzled. The fire spit out a shower of sparks.

  Aidan leaned into Redwood. “Used to feel that way, as a boy, up in the mountains.”

  Do right, for the sickness cured, for the babies born true, for the evil spirits chased from your gates, have mercy.

  Aidan covered his ears.

  “What’s a matter?” Redwood asked.

  Aidan shook his head as riders in black robes tore down a dark road raising dust, right past Elisa’s ironing board.

  “You sick, boy?” Ladd was standing over him.

  “Just sober,” Aidan rasped. He was usually stinking drunk at this point in the evening. He tried to speak again, but his voice was caught in another time. “I hear you Miz Garnett. I’m trying,” his other voice said.

  “What he say?” Eliza asked.

  Aidan lowered Garnett’s body through dense foliage to a white cloth on the ground. Wrapping the burnt remains up, he was grim, fighting tears. Running with the body through the woods, he almost fell.

  Redwood had her storm hand against his heart. It was cold as snow. He clutched it for a moment and then pushed her away. “You feeling better now?” she asked.

  “I’m out of sorts, maybe I should go.” Aidan stood up.

  She stood up next to him. “Out of sorts is the time for you to stay.”

  “I…ain’t right.”

  “Why you saying that?” Elisa said.

  “I run one wife out the county and the other one out the state with my —”

  ”You’ll find a good woman again,” Ladd said.

  “Yes you will. A handsome, hard-working man like you.” Elisa smiled at Redwood.

  “And scare her away too. They don’t call me Crazy Coop for nothing.” But the worst had passed and without him downing a jug.

  “I won’t hear you talk yourself down.” Redwood stormed out the kitchen.

  Aidan fingered his journal.

  Aunt Elisa was so desperate to get Redwood married ’til she’d see her niece jump the broom with Crazy Coop! Redwood wanted to be furious or laugh, but she stopped in the hallway and tried to imagine Aidan kissing her or touching her secret spots. She imagined touching him, having his manhood inside her. In the drafty hall, she felt warm, hot almost. A sweet ache deep inside caught her breath. She’d never gone so far in her mind with anybody else. This certainly eased the chill in her lungs.

  Didn’t Aidan say, loving was always a good thing?

  And talking with him, saying what was on her mind, the nasty tingle under her skin let up. Aidan didn’t run scared when he saw who she was or what she wanted. He believed in her and she believed in him. Redwood let herself smile. The way he looked at her sometimes was how Ladd looked at Elisa, as if the world would end if something should happen to her. Truth be told, Redwood didn’t know what she’d do without Aidan either. Maybe he was somebody to love after all, even in Peach Grove, Georgia. Course George would have a bird. And then there was the law against them. Since Aidan was probably Indian too, Cherokee or Seminole, might be different, or maybe they could run off to Chicago together and be who they wanted.

  But Redwood wasn’t ready to marry nobody yet.

  She walked into the backroom feeling better than she had since coming back from the World’s Fair. Her voice was full and strong. She could’ve broke out singing. George was packing clothes in a canvas bag. Redwood snuck up behind him, ready to poke his ribs. Her smile turned to a frown. One of his hands was wrapped in a bloody rag. He glanced at her, shrugged, and then turned back to packing.

  “You been in a fight,” she said.

  “Can’t deny it.”

  Filled with dread, Redwood stepped ’round a bed roll and tripped over a stack of books and papers. “Don’t go, Brother.”

  “I can’t be a man in Peach Grove.” He stuffed money from selling feathers for over a year into a pouch. He was a rich man now and could go where he wanted. Still —

  “You be you wherever you go, George Phipps.” She didn’t want to lose him too.

  He packed the books and papers. “It’s better up north, in Chicago.”

  “Chicago? Take me with you. In Chicago I could find a bright destiny.”

  “No.” George grabbed his bed roll and headed for the back door. He was sneaking out, like a thief in the night.

  “You just goin’ leave us? Not say a word?”

  “Look, I don’t know what trouble be on this road.”

  Redwood blocked his exit. “Why you run from here into trouble?” She took hold of his bloody hand. “Tell me what you think’s so wrong with Peach Grove.”

  George winced as she peeled off the makeshift bandage. “You see good wherever you look, Red. That’s not worth a damn where I’m going.”

  “You’re lying to me with a bit of truth.” Redwood pulled the pain from his hand, but held the hurting a moment ’stead of throwing it away. “I can feel it.”

  “Uncle Ladd tell them freedom lies, but he don’t live none of that, too ’fraid to.”

  “I ain’t ’fraid. Miz Subie say —”

  “Subie a conjure woman, same as Mama. Death don’t scare her none.” He tried to push past her. She didn’t budge.

  “So what scare you so, you sneaking off in the night?” Redwood threw his pain at the ground. It sparked in the air. “Something ’bout Mama, huh?”

  He turned to her, hoodooing hisself. It was dragon George now flexing a healed claw. Scaly wings unfurled from his back. He snarled fire breath through dagger-sharp talons.

  “You don’t scare me.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I can catch a lightning storm. Tell me what’s what. I won’t let you go ’til you do.”

  The air sizzled with fierce energy. George still looked scary, but his regular self again. “Peach Grove crackers, like the crazy one sitting in our kitchen, strung up Mama after god knows what else and set fire to her.”

  “What?” Redwood backed up, stumbling and swaying. The solid ground gave way under her feet. She was sinking in quicksand. She gripped the doorway.

  “That’s how Mama went to Glory on Christmas day.” His words burned more than dragon’s breath.

  “I don’t believe you.” The air was wrong, grainy and hard. She gasped and gasped, but nobody, not even a conjure woman could breathe dirt. “No.” Her blood turned thick and heavy, and her chest throbbed. Nobody’s heart would pump mud either. She could’ve died then and there. “Aidan Cooper wouldn’t do Mama terrible wrong and sit up in our kitchen after. Aunt and Uncle wouldn’t be having none of that.”

  George considered lying some more. His twitching nose gave him away, but then he sighed. “Okay, not him. Other white men.”

  “I could fly apart into every direction.” She clutched her chest.

  “Mama was busy saving colored Peach Grove, and these chicken-livered Negroes act as if she had it coming to her. ’Cause she held her head up. ’Cause she shot a white man who tried to force her.”

  Redwood’s legs gave out and she slid to the floor. “Why I ain’t never heard any of this before?”

  “Cowards and brutes each got their reasons to hold their tongues. And the family, well, who’s goin’ tell you that? You the spitting image of Mama.” He paused, like he was seeing a haint, ’stead of his sister. “Folks be ’fraid…I see how everybody look at you. Bubba Jackson only come sniffing ’round to prove he ain’t scared.”

  Redwood felt hollow and so cold, mountain, ice cold. “Mama was wrapped in a white cloth with orchids and bay branches…I was the first one in the church. I saw her there with baby Jesus and the wise men. One wise man was broken. I set him upright against an orchid.”

  “Coop cut her down an
d brought her to the church. I’ll say that for him.”

  “Aunt Elisa say it was an angel did that.”

  “You still believing that?” George shook his head. “Time you grew up!”

  Redwood covered her face. “Ain’t nobody tole me nothing different.”

  “Folks swear Coop put them orchids on her. What’s that? Did he stop ’em from stringing her up, from —”

  “Stop who? Who did it?”

  George sputtered and shook his head.

  “Don’t lie. Tell me, so I know what’s what.”

  “I don’t know who did it,” he snarled. “Believe me.”

  “Why? All the lying everybody been doing ’round here.”

  “I don’t know who those men were, that’s God’s truth, ’cause if I did.” Fire was on his breath a moment, then he swallowed it down. “You were just a little child.”

  “Somebody in the family could have tole me something, ’stead of lying.”

  “You look like Mama. Act like her too. If she coming through you, why we goin’ tell you how she’s dead?”

  “Aidan was one of them what believed in Mama.”

  “Daddy and Miz Subie believed in her too. What good did it do?”

  “Subie say Mama cheat that boneyard baron.”

  “Yeah, one colored life ’stead of the crackers burning us all out.”

  “Now you sneaking off?” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “So when were you goin’ tell me?”

  “Get off the floor now.” He stood over her.

  She couldn’t move. He reached down for her. She fought him, but he finally lifted her up and hugged her.

  “I’ll write from Chicago, when I get settled.”

  Before Redwood took another breath, George was gone out the back door.

  Mama had been lynched and nobody ever told her!

  Feeling like a fool and mad enough to spit poison, Redwood marched into the kitchen. Ladd was smoking and staring in the fire. Aidan was reading Of One Blood or The Hidden Self. Elisa dozed in her rocker but woke with a start as Redwood charged over to Aidan.

  “If you fixing on lying to me with the rest of ’em…you best be leaving, Mr. Cooper.”

  “I don’t ever be lying to you.” Aidan set down the book and stood up. “What’s wrong? You been crying?”

  “You tell me every other story ’bout what happened on this land, but not this story!”

  Elisa ran over to Redwood and took her arm. “What George go and tell you?”

  “He say, this ain’t no place to be a man. I reckon it’s no place to be a woman either.”

  The fire went out. Embers settled with a sigh. Outside horse hooves pounded the ground as George rode off to make a new life in Chicago.

  Six

  Georgia Countryside, 1904

  “If a man carry a gun all the time,” Miz Subie said, “he will kill someone. A gun can hoodoo you. Any weapon you carry, any hate you hold, will use you.” She sucked her teeth and shook her head. “Being mad at everybody in Peach Grove won’t help nothing. Set your mind to healing. We’re here.”

  Redwood swallowed an angry retort and guided the canoe to shore. She’d never gone so far up creek. Folks said it was dead land, haunted. She didn’t know anybody even lived here, ’til Subie said where they were going. Just beyond the creek, the soil was scalded, barren but for scraggly weeds. This land was once a fire forest, but the flame resistant woods had laid down to loggers several years ago. A tiny cabin clung to hardscrabble ground. A stiff wind could’ve carried it away. The creek gurgled outside its lone window, which had no glass panes, just a dirty blanket keeping out the chill.

  Subie walked in the rickety door without knocking. Redwood was close behind, carrying baskets of herbs, roots, ointments, and Subie’s special healing implements wrapped in clean cotton. They both wore red mojo bags at the waist, but Subie had her healing root bag too and bangles at her ankles, warding off bad spells. Redwood set the tools of their trade on a table. The cabin had one middling-sized room and a loft. Kitchen stove was only giving off a little heat, and the fireplace was cold. A bed was wedged in the corner, and a sick gal sweat blood in filthy sheets and twisted in pain.

  “It’s goin’ be Christmas ’fore you know it, Rebecca,” Miz Subie said to her. “I got the shawl you made me last year.” She wore a green spiderwebby thing.

  “A year already come and gone, and I missed it,” Rebecca said. Redwood had seen her at Iona’s. Rebecca wasn’t right in the head, but she loved the Blues. Her teeth were yellow, her skin was ashy, and what flesh she had hung from her bones.

  “Spring never come fast enough for me.” Subie touched Rebecca’s head and the gal shuddered. “I’m always waiting on the heat.” Subie chattered on, praising steamy summer days when the ground held the heat like a blanket for the night. Rebecca settled into her words and touch.

  A middle-aged woman with a riot of nappy hair busting through a tattered head rag stepped out of the shadows by the chimney. She smelled sour and looked anxious. Trembling, she pointed a bony finger at Redwood. “What’s she doing here?”

  “How do, Dora,” Subie said and tucked her mojo bag into her skirt. “Redwood’s working with me now. Getting old, got to pass it along.”

  Redwood hid her mojo bag as well.

  “Don’t tell my husband, Miz Subie. He wouldn’t want to know,” she looked right at Redwood, “that y’all been here.”

  “I don’t talk to the man,” Subie said. “You can tell him what you please.”

  Subie listened to Rebecca’s breath and felt the pulse of her heart. She wiped sweat from her brow, tasted it, and grimaced. Redwood did the same. It was salty and bitter and a few other tastes that Redwood would talk over with Subie later. Rebecca passed in and out, writhing in pain. Redwood reached a hand to her scrunched-up cheeks.

  Subie held Redwood back. “Leave her pain be. It’ll guide us for now.”

  Dora twitched and muttered. Redwood wondered if she had all her wits.

  “Dora ain’t ask us here on her own account.” Subie read Redwood’s thoughts and pulled back the sheet. Her face hardened as she examined Rebecca’s bloody private parts. Redwood was wincing more than Rebecca, ’til Subie scowled her quiet. “Who cut her up so bad?” Subie said.

  “She lost the baby — a sin against God,” Dora said. “Can you fix her up?”

  Redwood answered quickly. “Sure we can. Don’t worry.”

  Subie narrowed her one good eye. “Stitching her up won’t be enough. We got to bring the fever down.” She thrust a needle at Redwood and pushed Dora toward a bucket. “She’s all dried out, get us some water. We’ll do what we can.”

  Subie didn’t say a word all the way back to her house. No hoodoo spells and wisdom, no stories of her wild youth, no catalogue of plants that can heal or poison, no discussing the folks they’d been curing all day. Redwood didn’t dare chatter or ask a question. Subie was in a mood. The temperature dropped quickly as the sun left the sky. Redwood’s hands got stiff with cold, and even though she did all the paddling for over three hours, Subie looked more tired than her when they dragged into her cozy kitchen. Healing wearied Subie worse than ever these days. The old woman dropped in a rocker by the fireplace and yawned like a bear.

  “I’m feeling every minute of my long years,” she grumbled.

  After the close quarters at Dora’s, Subie’s two-room cabin was a palace, fragrant and magical. Dried herbs and flowers hung from every beam. Amulets, mandalas, and painted spells decorated the walls. Bottles of her cure-all lined the mantle, ready for sale. Redwood lit a fire in the stove and stowed the roots, potions, powders, candles, dirt, and tools exactly where Subie liked to find them. The orderliness of her stocks was a lesson of its own. Subie knew the magic of setting one thing against another.

  “Today seem like a hundred days,” Redwood said.

  Not certain she put everything in its place, Redwood set the traveling basket by the stove and went out to the well. She hauled in two bucket
s of fresh water and set a kettle to boil. A bush by the door with colored bottles strung on bare branches tinkled in the wind each time she passed.

  “You and Aidan both catching mean spirits,” Redwood said. “We tossed his in the stream. What you do with a bottle of badness?”

  With great effort, Subie bent over to arrange kindling in the fireplace. “Don’t ever say you can do what you can’t.” The fire caught quickly.

  “Sorry, Miz Subie, I just —”

  “Don’t sorry me. A gift such as yours will turn to a curse without wisdom.” When flames were dancing to her satisfaction, Subie sank back in her rocker. “Garnett ask me to look out.” She watched the fire, as if it had a story to tell.

  Redwood brought Subie a basin of hot water to wash up. “I almost can’t remember Mama’s face.” Redwood washed herself from another basin. “I remember how Mama smelled: hickory smoke, magnolia soap, and some ole nasty tea that seemed sweet ’til after you drank it.”

  Subie struggled up again. The cold was settling in her joints. She creaked and cracked like an old door. “I know this tea. Give you the runs. Clean out every evil thing in you.” She hobbled over to a chest of drawers and rifled through several. “Here.” She pulled out a photo wrapped in a violet handkerchief.

  It was a black and white image of Garnett Phipps with an orchid in her hair, looking how Redwood would at thirty-five. “I didn’t know you had a photo of Mama.”

  “From the Chicago Fair.” Subie sat back down. “I got plenty you don’t know.”

  “Mama don’t talk to me since she gone to Glory.”

  Redwood had promised Miz Subie not to do anything wild ’til she was good and strong, but holding a picture of Garnett, Redwood couldn’t help herself. She’d been feeling so much better lately, practically her old self. Being mad at everyone for lying to her hadn’t dampened her spirit; in fact it was a tonic for what ailed her. So with Subie nodding off to sleep in her rocker, Redwood squinted through heavy-lidded eyes at the black and white image ’til it came to life: Mama’s hot breath fogged the air; big brown eyes reflected red firelight, but not at the Chicago Fair like Redwood expected. It was Christmas 1898, and the family was running through the swamp. Crackers were burning colored Peach Grove. Garnett pulled a young Redwood out of the mud and hugged her as she shivered. Baby Iris gurgled on Garnett’s back. George stood beside them, his teeth chattering.