Redwood and Wildfire

by Andrea Hairston

  Somebody plucked out-of-tune notes on an ornery banjo, or a cheeky squirrel ran over abandoned strings. Aidan had visions of bloated, yellow-eyed corpses as he staggered ’cross the creek to Elisa and Ladd’s place. He fell twice, gashing his head on a rake in the front yard. Chickens pecked at the dirt by his nose, skewering kernels of corn. Happy pigs waddled from behind the shed to stare at him. Coffee brewing scented the air and made his stomach holler. Chaos had yet to come calling here. It was a regular Wednesday morning or Thursday; Aidan had lost track of the days.

  As he stood up, the world tilted. In vain he reached his hand out to steady the horizon. “Iris?” he shouted and lurched toward the house.

  Iris stepped onto the porch with his banjo. Eleven now, tall and beautiful in a Sunday dress, she looked like Redwood did at this age: proud cheekbones, stormy eyes, and dandelion hair puffing out from a hundred curling braids. Turning into a woman, and he hadn’t noticed. Aidan clutched his heart.

  “You didn’t come and you didn’t come and you didn’t come,” Iris said. “Uncle Ladd thought you died of the fever or left without a word, same as my sister.”

  “Why would I leave and not take you with me?” He scooped her up and squeezed ’til they both could barely breathe.

  “You hurting me,” Iris gasped.

  “Sorry, honey bun.” Aidan let her go.

  “I can usually see folks wherever they are.” She sniffled. “I couldn’t see you no more, nowhere, just mist and smoke.”

  “I was lost, and I almost forgot ’bout you, I won’t lie, but ain’t goin’ be no more of that.” And then he was hugging her again.

  “She say,” Iris pointed into the gloom of the house, “if I played your banjo, your song, you’d come. Back from the dead even.”

  “Your music called to me, but who tell you that?” Aidan squinted into the dark.

  “Did you die? Is this your second chance?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, my second life.”

  “Does everybody get one of them?” Iris almost dropped the banjo.

  Aidan grabbed the neck and set it down. He wiped her runny nose. “Where’s your Aunt Elisa, Uncle Ladd? Them hardheaded cousins of yours are real quiet.” He took a step into the gloom of the house, but then stepped back.

  Iris’s eyes blurred, her lips trembled, and she leaned into him. “We was doing okay. Some folks falling down sick, but everybody helping out, getting better.”

  “Well, sure.” Aidan gathered her in his arms. “Elisa and Ladd be out there with food, water, medicine, easing the way for those ’bout to cross over. They could show the white folk a thing or two.”

  “Miz Jackson lost her baby boy, but it wasn’t yellow fever, a coughing sickness.”

  “Doc Johnson say something else going ’round.”

  “Uncle and Aunt brought it home to us kids. Took the whole family. Left me alone. We did the burying last evening. I threw the first dirt on their faces.”

  Aidan felt that dirt in his eyes. He slid down onto the steps, so stunned his heart skipped a few beats. He almost couldn’t believe what she said. Elisa, Ladd, and the cousins, dead and gone, and he didn’t get to say good-bye, thank-you-Ma’am, nothing. Iris leaned against his chest and broke into tears. Aidan had never seen her cry before.

  “What you talking ’bout alone? You and me. We’re a family.” He rocked her, terrified.

  Iris grabbed the banjo and thrust it at him. He’d taken to leaving precious things here, in case a mishap befell him when he went hunting or so he wouldn’t just lose something, like his daddy’s knife, like the shotgun he left behind in the woods this morning. He took the banjo from her and held it against his chest.

  “They didn’t leave you here by yourself,” he said. “I know that.”

  Iris pointed into the house again. “She say, play that banjo and he’ll come, but I didn’t hurt it, did I?”

  “Naw.” Aidan got the tuning in order. The strings hurt and nothing sounded right.

  “I kept your banjo safe. Always do, when you go off.” She wiped at tears streaking down the side. “Play, please.”

  His fingers were clumsy, tone deaf still, and he would’ve set the banjo back down, but for Iris’s tears splashing him. The fingers of his right hand stumbled on a lover’s lament where the left hand didn’t have much to do. Iris and the cousins would pester him to play this song whenever butter went rancid, hogs took sick, or the crop was scant, whenever somebody was just mad at creation. The whole tune didn’t budge off A Minor Seventh. Iris leaned against Aidan’s back and watched his fingers trip along the strings. Pain eased up off her bony little shoulders. When he played it a second time, a little better, she fell asleep against him and snored. Aidan set his banjo down quietly and laid her in the swing on the porch. Elisa’s chair rocked beside him. As tears flooded his face, a gnarled hand damped the motion.

  “Boneyard baron rock an empty chair,” Subie said. Aidan wiped his face quickly. Subie come out the house dressed in indigo blue, a red mojo bag hanging from her belt. Silver bangles at her wrists and ankles banged together, making sparks of light but no sound. She smelled bitter and sweet, like the mug of steaming coffee she sipped. Her gnarled fingers made Aidan think of spider legs. He shivered and itched. Seemed Subie was spidering through his mind. “Past time you left Peach Grove, Aidan Wildfire.”

  He jumped. He never told anybody his Seminole name, not two wives, not Cherokee Will or Doc Johnson, not even Redwood, the only real friend he ever had.

  “Iris need to find her sister.” Subie touched a finger to his chest. “You too. I figure y’all can do that together.”

  “Redwood and Mr. Williams could be anywhere.”

  “Jerome’s light don’t shine no more.” Subie waved at Aidan’s mouth forming a tall tale. “Hush, I got a postcard from Chicago. Redwood tell me the whole story. Well, not the whole thing, but I read between the lines.” Subie thrust a red leather journal at him. “Ladd say you wrote all his lies into this book. Mice chewed the cover a little.”

  Aidan wouldn’t take it. “You don’t wanna keep them stories?”

  Subie made a sign from her heart to her head. “I got ’em already.” She put his alligator bag on top of the journal.

  “What I need an ole Indian pouch for?”

  “You give Elisa money in here to hold for Iris.” Subie winked her milky eye. “You holding Iris now, ain’t you?”

  “Sure I am, but —”

  “But nothing. Elisa and Ladd wanted you to have these things, if you come back from the dead. You back yet?” Subie sighed. “Ladd wasn’t sure you’d make it, but Elisa never stopped believing in you. She just couldn’t wait, had to move on up.”

  Aidan closed his eyes on more hot tears. A blubbering drunk, what good was he goin’ be to Iris or anybody?

  “Don’t go feeling sorry for yourself. No more time for that. Is this Jerome’s money?”

  “Why can’t we just stay here?”

  “Iris and Redwood need each other.”

  “So why I gotta take her?”

  “My teeth ’bout to drop out, I lean to one side, fall asleep frying eggs and ’llowed to burn down the house. Besides, you promised.” Subie slapped the book and bag against his chest. He grabbed them before she whacked his head.

  “Going’s one thing. Getting there is another.”

  Subie picked up his banjo. “You done lost the touch with your music.”

  Aidan hung his head. He couldn’t play or sing worth a damn no more.

  “You wanna play again, make Elisa proud, get you some dirt from the boneyard, good goober dust and take it to a crossing of roads. Iron roads be the best for you and Iris. Big black steeds charging every direction. Nine times, the sun’ll watch you race by. Drop goober dust where tracks crisscross. Blow it to the four directions. By the ninth horizon, you’ll be playing whatever music you want.”

  “You trust me to do all that?”

  “Chicago’s a mighty crossroads. Folk from everywhere, calling down
powerful juju.”

  “What I look like messing in powerful juju?” Aidan shook so bad, he spilled coins and bills from the bag. He caught the money before it hit the ground though.

  “You goin’ make it, Aidan Wildfire.”

  “You read my journal?”

  “Naw, my eye be so tired these days, Luella got to read to me.”

  “How you know my Seminole name? My true name.”

  “You speak it sometime without meaning to.”

  “Oh. So a conjure woman don’t hear underneath things, how everybody say?”

  “You be turning into a ghost, you don’t feed your spirit.”

  “You asking a lot of a hard-drinking man.”

  “I see plenty whiskey bottles lined up in your mind. Amber sunset be playing tricks on you though. Every one of them bottles is empty!”

  Subie chortled at her joke and sat down with him on the stairs. The sun sank under the creek. Iris sleepwalked from the swing to Aidan’s lap, snuggling up to him like when she was little. Holding her close was sweet comfort.

  “Iris tole me you wanted to come back, to look for her,” Subie patted the gal’s head, “but you was lost somewhere in the dark. She played the banjo to call you home.”

  A shooting star fell from the sky.

  “That must be hitting ground in the boneyard,” Aidan said.

  “A spirit come home.” She touched his bruised forehead. “You ’fraid Redwood might love you back and then what, huh?”

  Aidan opened his mouth and then closed it. Under Subie’s gnarled fingers, most of the aches and pains drained out of him, but how could Redwood ever love him back? Subie struggled up and walked off into dusky fields, her ankles sparking. A second light fell out of the sky.

  “Two down.” Aidan sighed. “So for sure I’m getting signs.”

  Thirteen

  Chicago and Peach Grove, 1910

  Halley’s Comet blazed ’cross the last of the night sky, a fiery snowball flashing its tail in the light from the coming sun. Redwood marveled at the journeywork of stars. Everywhere, miracles and blessings and challenges — Mr. Walt Whitman and Dr. W.E.B. Dubois were whistling in her ears today, chastising her for feeling sorry and sad, when she had such a grand life, doing what she’d always dreamed of.

  A Chicago Defender article on Dr. Dubois flew out the dressing room window before she could catch it. Redwood had gotten in the habit of reading newspapers and collecting headlines. It was an early morning ritual. She liked knowing what the world was up to first thing. She listened to the gossip at the butcher shop and to the workers coming home from the graveyard shifts in the town that never slept. At the laundry, she listened to women complain while bringing in dirty sheets, breeches, and the secrets of their customers. On the trolley she soaked in the chitchat between the stops. People held on to each other for a few seconds with their humble, breathless reports. She wasn’t searching for news of Jerome Williams anymore, but searching all the same, ’cause when she found it, she would know. This morning she only had time to flip through her recent collection of headlines:

  1910 — Mark Twain blazed in and out with Halley’s Comet!

  Governor of Georgia decrees: no Negro to wear a uniform.

  Girl goes to Hungary to be with Father when Comet comes.

  Morris wins Color-Line Suit. Negroes to have seats in any part of theaters in Illinois!

  Mexican Elections — Francisco Madero hopes to oust President Diaz.

  Woman declares: “That Negro beat me, said he’d kill me, so I shot him, and then I shot him some more!”

  Redwood sighed. The theatre was dark on Mondays, and her day off would be long, waiting to get back on stage, waiting to be somebody other than herself, waiting for the audience to set her free. At least she was going out bright and early with Clarissa to do good work, healing at the settlement house. Putting on her mojo bag, she thought of Subie, Aidan, and the wild child she’d been back in Georgia. She reached her hand toward the fading comet and felt an icy burn as she traced the tail. She drew her hand back quickly. The fingertips were an angry red.

  “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  The halls of the settlement house echoed with squeals, groans, and heated conversation. Fearless Clarissa strode ahead of Redwood into a chamber so jammed there was barely room to walk. Hundreds of colored men, women, and children, recent arrivals from all over the south, had come for help in making a home in the windy city.

  “They all get here today?” Redwood stepped over smelly bundles and raggedy children.

  “More coming all the time. Looking for the promised land.” Clarissa scanned the bustling horde.

  “In Chicago? Just like me.”

  “To hear George talk, anything’s better than where they’ve been.”

  “George talk all kind of stuff, you know.”

  “I know who I married.” Clarissa found her direction and marched on.

  Folks frowned as the two women plowed through the room. These backcountry farmers were ’fraid of their own shadows and even more hostile to what they’d never seen before. Redwood knew them like the back of her breath. They whispered disapproval of Clarissa’s upper-class corset, lace, and starch, and of Redwood’s Bohemian, theatrical flair. Babies gurgled and cried. Children ripped through the crowd, dashing between the sour chat and grunts. Redwood caught a few sly eyes sizing her up and offered them a sparkling smile. She did a little turn to show off her oriental silk dress and jacket.

  “I’m an adventure out of the Arabian Nights.” She stroked a turban borrowed from Saeed to seal the Persian magic.

  “Don’t start.” Clarissa gritted her teeth at such a shameless display. Redwood wore the dress for Clarissa’s sake, but sister-in-law didn’t approve of foreign fashion or so much free moving flesh, even if it was all the rage. Well, Clarissa’s high-boned collar didn’t make skittish farm folk warm to her, and Redwood had ’em smiling!

  In a room with sick and wounded people, Redwood donned a white smock over her silk, sucked a deep breath, and set a broken bone. Her patient passed out. Clarissa, also in a white smock, hugged a scared little boy as Redwood finished the job. She pulled as much pain as she dared, but didn’t want to spook anybody and didn’t want to get tired out before the day was half over. Folk always held on to their hurting. Pulling pain was like wrassling a juicy bone from a bear. Back in Peach Grove, Redwood only had to persuade a few patients at a time to let their hurting go, not hundreds of people.

  Redwood drew Clarissa aside. “It’s a shame people got to suffer so when I know doctors have drugs for the pain, so you don’t feel so bad while you’re getting healed.”

  “We’ve run out of aspirin and laudanum. Too many people flooding in, wounded and sick,” Clarissa said. “Colored aren’t welcome everywhere, and Provident Hospital’s overflowing. Not enough colored doctors or nurses to go round. We make do except for the worst cases.” She dropped her voice. “Do you know how much they charge?”

  “Don’t tell me,” Redwood groaned.

  “These are poor people.” Clarissa smiled at a skinny toddler tugging on her. “Barely can afford the air they breathe.”

  “Hush,” Redwood raised her hand. “I don’t want to get mad while I work.”

  “Colored doctors have a right to earn a living.”

  “Don’t everybody?”

  “White doctors charge even more.”

  “So? I’m doing this for free. These folks work hard and don’t earn nothing.”

  “It’s ‘doesn’t everybody have a right.’” Clarissa corrected Redwood’s grammar and avoided the argument. She did that all day. “We have to be a model for the less educated, for the less fortunate.”

  “I know your grammar,” Redwood said. “I just don’t feel it. Everything you got in you to say, you can’t always say it right. Proper ain’t the only talk there is.”

  Clarissa nodded as if she understood this for once. “The rest of the world can’t always see or doesn’t even care wha
t you have in you. You can’t give them ammunition against you. Besides, women are naturally more generous than men.”

  Redwood snorted at this, but for her sister-in-law’s sake, she decided to apply herself to this role of model colored woman uplifting the race. “Okay. It just seem, seems wrong somewhere.”

  Why put all this effort into being like the white people, like the rich people, when they the ones raining down misery and pain? If she thought too much on that, she got storm mad. Fortunately, when working the roots and healing somebody, time went almost as fast as on stage. She could forget ’bout the evil things people took for granted. Model Negro Woman; that was just another role.

  Redwood inspected a newborn while the anxious mother watched. “She’s only a child her ownself,” she whispered to Clarissa.

  “The wages of sin,” Clarissa said, “snatches your innocence from you.”

  Redwood didn’t know what to say to that.

  She stitched a bloody gash on a young mother’s neck and shoulder. Clarissa held her toddler ’til Redwood finished. The gal tried not to wince or flinch too much with her little boy looking on and ready to cry hisself. “I’m called Belle.”

  “My daughter’s name is Belle too,” Clarissa said.

  “I’m called Sequoia. It’s a Cherokee name for a great wise man of their tribe.” Clarissa and Belle gaped at Redwood. “Did I say something out the way?”

  “Belle means pretty in French,” Clarissa said quickly.

  “My man done left me anyhow.” Belle tugged Redwood’s arm. “They say you a hoodoo. You got a spell to bring him back?”

  “I got a spell to take away love sickness. You want that?”

  Belle nodded. Clarissa watched, horrified, as Redwood handed her a small pouch. Belle stuffed it down her bosom.

  “If you get a powerful urge for him, put that on your tongue. Nasty taste does the job.”

  “Gal in the corner got a man who thrashed her something awful. She probably on her last heartbeat.” Belle pointed. “She asked for you.”

  Redwood turned. The flap of turkey buzzard wings obscured her view, a lazy shadow crossing the room. The boneyard baron’s cold breath slithered down her neck.