Redwood and Wildfire

by Andrea Hairston

  “What is it?” Clarissa hesitated, feeling something too.

  “We’ll see.” Redwood wasn’t ’fraid of the baron. She respected him, so he wouldn’t call her up before her time, but there wasn’t no use worrying when death was coming for you. She kept on walking. The woman laying on the mat was all beat up, inside and out. Her skin was so thin, barely holding her spirit. Her eyes had almost gone dark. She didn’t want to look on this world no more.

  “Why ain’t, isn’t she with the doctor?” Redwood said.

  “Doctor isn’t coming until Thursday.” Clarissa kept her distance.

  “Be too late then.” Redwood took the woman’s hands. They were cold as snow and didn’t weigh nothing. “What’s your name?” Redwood pulled all the pain she could.

  “Sarah,” the woman whispered. “It’s my time, isn’t it?”

  The baron stood beside her, an icy wind in a black top hat. Diamond teeth caught a glint of sunlight and froze in a grin. Redwood shuddered — she’d never seen him this plain before. Death wasn’t a stranger to her no more. Clarissa quavered.

  “You want to go, Sarah, or you want to stay?” Redwood whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Sarah said. “Can you help me stay?”

  Bartering with the baron for more time was a powerful spell. Redwood had seen Garnett do it when she was a young gal, had even helped her one time. That was before, and truly seemed more a story or a dream than a real-life event. And she hadn’t seen the baron, just felt him. Miz Subie didn’t dare try a death-defying spell but once in her whole long life. Who was Redwood to help this Sarah wrassle with death? Baron might take both their lives for spite, for Redwood thinking herself too big.

  “I don’t never say I can do what I can’t.” Redwood tried to look the baron in the eye. His cold countenance burned so, she cast her glance down. His laughter almost cracked her skull open. Her storm hand throbbed, as if it was fixing to bust apart.

  “Help me go then,” Sarah said.

  “I, I don’t dare do that either,” Redwood mumbled.

  “That’s right. God sets the time of our coming and going,” Clarissa declared and then whispered in Redwood’s ear. “Make her comfortable as you can. Sometimes there’s just nothing else we can do. And this is also a blessing.”

  The sun was gone from the sky, not even a taste of pink lingering in the clouds. Clarissa and Redwood hurried down a hall in the settlement house carrying their dirty white smocks. Streaky green walls and scuffed floors looked weary from holding so many hard-luck cases, from catching so many dreamers who got lost in Chicago nightmares, who got beaten to death by someone who should’ve loved them. Redwood passed her hand in front of her eyes. Gloomy thoughts were tainting her vision. Plenty of colored dreamers be riding high in Chicago. Look at George making money hand over fist, look at her and Saeed stepping on stage six nights a week and soon to be in a moving picture, look at Morris winning the Color-Line Suit and Negroes sitting where they please all ’cross Illinois.

  Settlement Negroes weren’t the only Negroes in this world, and conjuring wasn’t the only good life.

  “Sister Redwood, you look weary.” Clarissa eyed Redwood’s mojo bag. Just before the door at the end of the hall, she pulled Redwood aside. “Clubwomen do good work, for our people coming up.”

  “Yes, sound like Georgia back in there.” Redwood sighed, almost homesick.

  “We’re bringing the colored woman and the colored man into the twentieth century, trying to shake off backcountry ways.”

  “Don’t worry.” Redwood tucked her mojo bag in her skirt. “I ain’t dare do no real hoodoo conjure since —”

  “Since what? I’ve seen plenty today.”

  “No you haven’t.” A powerful spell ’llowed to work a heavy trick on a great conjurer, leave a mark on her soul, even if she take good care. Clarissa didn’t know much ’bout hoodoo. “How can I explain what you don’t believe?”

  “We got to trust each other.” Clarissa stood tall, stood close. “I want the truth.”

  They stared into each other. “All right. Hot-foot spell and such is just snagging folk with what they’re already ’fraid of. To do more, a conjure woman has to be wild, risk big. You can’t know everything beforehand. Hoodoo is an improvisation, like on stage, making up the next moments as you go. If you’re touched by the spirit in everything, no telling what miracles and blessings you can do…or what tragedy. You can’t control a powerful spell, so, I hold myself back — setting bones, stitching wounds.”

  “That’s good discipline, and we’re grateful. We’re saving up to afford a proper doctor more than once a week.” Clarissa cleared her throat. “What sort of improvisation is giving out bags of hoodoo tricks?”

  “You think that gal don’t, doesn’t need help steering clear of a man who cut her up?”

  “Yes, but superstition won’t uplift the race.”

  “Who care what you call the help I give?”

  “We do good Christian work, no truck with the devil.”

  “If you think the devil be in my hands, in my heart, what you bring me here for?”

  “You’re a good woman, but you’re wild, like George. You should get married and settle down with a good man.” Felt like Clarissa smacked her upside the head.

  Redwood slid down the wall to the scuffed floor.

  “Get up! Somebody will see you.” Clarissa fanned her as if she were feverish.

  “Sarah still had a spark in her. I should have wrassled the baron with her.”

  “Who?” Clarissa scanned the empty halls. “What’s the matter with you?

  “I’m a coward.” Redwood hugged her legs to her chest. “And I feel so lonely sometimes, like I’m lost in a swamp with gators for my only company.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic. The floor is filthy. You’ll ruin your nice dress.”

  “You and George and plenty folks coming and going in Chicago, the promised land, and I’m stuck in mud.”

  Clarissa tried to pull her up. “Children and a husband change everything.”

  “Turkey buzzards just waiting ’til I drop down and don’t get up.”

  Clarissa shook Redwood’s shoulders. “A wife can’t just worry on herself. You know what each minute is worth when you’re managing a family.”

  “I don’t try to change you.” Redwood grasped Clarissa’s arms.

  “No you don’t.”

  Redwood stood up. “I got a hole in my spirit. Men touch me and nothing happens.”

  “Oh.” Clarissa was embarrassed by this confession. “You do say anything, don’t you?” She fussed over Redwood’s dress and jacket as if the floor had done worse to it than stitching up bloody wounds. “Don’t go round talking that to everybody.”

  “Ain’t, aren’t you my sister now, my friend?”

  Clarissa’s high-boned collar squeezed her neck so tight, it was hard to swallow or breathe, yet she made herself do both before she spoke. “You know, I’ve seen almost forty summers, not thirty-five. George thinks we married because of his ambition.”

  “George don’t want less than any rich man got.”

  Clarissa spit on a handkerchief and wiped Redwood’s cheek. “He doesn’t mess in what I want to do.”

  “And any ruthless thing George do, he can blame on love for you. Yeah, kill every last egret for feathers to keep his wife in style.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Clarissa rubbed at something on Redwood’s nose.

  “Killing birds is how George got his stake to come north.” Redwood clutched her hand. “Sometimes I want to be ruthless too and just twist everything my way.”

  “And do what?”

  A group of clubwomen in clean smocks descended on them, all chattering at once.

  “Have you read in the news?” one very black woman said. Even though sleek, straight hair was piled in dark clouds on her head and the lace on her dress cost a fortune, she wasn’t the right color for this crowd. “Murder! If laziness, superstition, and voodooism w
eren’t bad enough.”

  “Voodooism?” Redwood said. “Isn’t that what white folk call —”

  “Those hoodoo colored fools going around tricking and conjuring, yes,” she replied. Glint in her eye said she knew Redwood was a hoodoo. “Spreading goober dust, taking your money, not doing any real harm, I guess. But now these Georgia and Mississippi Negroes are cutting and shooting and killing each other.” She gossiped on to eager ears, a fire catching in dry weeds. “Over nothing too. Stick you in the heart, shoot you down dead, just because they don’t fancy how you say, how do! The Negro women almost as wild as the men. Pulling out a shotgun and blasting your head off.”

  “Worse than the Italians even,” a pale companion chimed in.

  “You don’t say.” Redwood recalled the headline: Woman declares: That Negro beat me, said he’d kill me, so I shot him, and then I shot him some more. “If a man push you too far, he get what he deserve.”

  “It’s a shame,” a wiry little woman said behind the others.

  “Colored killing each other more than everybody else in Chicago combined.” The pale one quaked.

  “Didn’t we have Georgia coming in today?” The dark lady said. Georgia was still in her country mouth and in her bold ways despite the hinkty Chicago overlay.

  “Georgia coming in every day,” Redwood said, using her stage voice. “Strong stock, they’ll make it through whatever Chicago throw at ’em!”

  They drew away from her. She shook her head. Clarissa and this crew were model Negro women doing good for the race, but frightened of raw colored folk, just up from the South. They didn’t believe in their own people. They were ashamed of Redwood.

  “Do you have a report, Clarissa? Where do we begin?” The wiry woman chewed the side of her lip. “Mrs. Powell didn’t write down anything from last night.”

  “We just have to find you the right man,” Clarissa whispered to Redwood and then turned to the women and their questions.

  Aidan, looking clean and handsome and respectable, twisted a final screw and swung the front door back and forth. It worked good as new. Iris, in dusty coveralls, was picking up the last bit of a broken box in the yard. Otherwise everything was very orderly. Princess wandered toward the porch, her tail flicking at flies. Aidan pulled an apple from his pocket and tossed it to Iris. Princess headed for her.

  Inside, the kitchen was clean and cozy. Aidan and Iris sat at a new table eating peach pie. Luella, Subie’s grandniece, had stopped by. She couldn’t stay, but left the pie. In between large bites, Iris balanced a spoon on her nose. Aidan laughed and tweaked her nose and the spoon clattered on the floor.

  “I’m glad we’re staying here,” Iris said as Aidan lifted a hunk of pie to his face. “Aunt Elisa and Uncle Ladd’s was so full of good times gone by, everywhere you look, a shadow of somebody I miss.” She hunched her shoulders up and stared at him. “I didn’t want to be there no more. It was too sad.”

  Aidan shoved the pie in his mouth and chewed slowly. “It’s a good thing to miss somebody you love.” He patted her hand.

  “You miss Redwood too, don’t you? She ain’t even dead.”

  “You feel her, do you?”

  Iris nodded.

  He grabbed his banjo and strummed. His fingers were stiff, but he didn’t stumble so bad ’round the neck. “I think ’bout your sister every day.”

  Actually, he tried not to think on her, but that didn’t work.

  Redwood stood in back of the jammed ballroom of the Ace of Spades Hotel, stretching her tight calf muscles. She had persuaded Saeed to give her a set of clothes that a Persian nobleman might wear. With slight alterations the voluminous tapered pants and embroidered robes fit her long body well. Saeed was dressed in a similar outfit and danced from one foot to another trying to prevent muscles from going cold.

  The Spades ballroom was more than a mere café saloon. The large square room had a thirty-foot high ceiling, a sixteen-by-sixteen-foot raised stage, and a hundred tables with four or five patrons sitting at each. A balcony held more audience and creaked and groaned under the good time they were having. The musicians huddled against the rostrum. There were no wings, backstage, or dressing rooms, but Redwood didn’t care.

  She scanned the folks enjoying the comedian act that she and Saeed would follow. She spied mostly colored folk, but everyone else too, and heard a welter of languages. This was a real Chicago Fair audience, just how she’d imagined. Several colored performers had come to see after-hours entertainment. Young working folk were out for a thrill or chasing a night of sweet loving. Out-of-town travelers were hunting down exotica, and so were a few nervous but rich-looking white men. Redwood could just see Doc Johnson at a place like this, on one of his travels somewhere.

  Saeed grabbed her hand, and before she realized this was the moment, they danced through the tables and jumped onto the cramped stage. The musicians were Saeed’s friends and knew the tempo and tone to hit. On stage Saeed and Redwood dashed over invisible barriers. They got tripped up and trapped, broke free, and ran again. The audience didn’t know what to make of this dance at first, but talk died down, drinks lingered at lips, and sweet cakes hovered in the air.

  Redwood and Saeed rode a horn solo up into air. Twisting and twirling, bending and bowing, they finally landed with a whisper on the creaky wooden floor to stunned applause. A banjo player with simple jug accompaniment took over. Banjo player was clumsy, but that didn’t matter. Saeed chanted softly in Farsi as Redwood, feeling right as rain, sang one of Aidan’s songs:

  Running won’t set you free

  Yeah, a man could still be a slave

  On the loose and-a acting brave

  In shackles he just don’t see

  Noooo, running won’t make you free

  In the bedroom, Aidan sang “Running won’t set you free” and strummed his banjo rather poorly ’til Iris fell asleep. He set his banjo on Aunt Caitlin’s heirloom trunk, tucked the sheet under Iris’s chin, and stood a moment listening to her breathing. He kissed her forehead and slipped out the room into the kitchen.

  Sitting at the table, Aidan pulled out his journal. It’d been a while since he kept good counsel with hisself. The orchid Garnett had left on his rocking chair was pressed in the center. In four years, the flower hadn’t dried out. After scratching one word on a blank page, his head ached. His skin burned and itched. He stopped writing and stared into the dancing fire. The cavorting flickers and shadows jumped him — fire imps, jabbing his body with red-hot pokers, laughing and hissing. One big fellow with a boar’s head and stubby gator legs took to clubbing Aidan with a burning birch log. Setting down the pen, Aidan pushed away from the table. Pain blasted his body. He closed his eyes, hugged his chest, and shuddered. The stabs of pain weren’t so bad if he didn’t also have to watch the fire imps.

  “Jesus,” he groaned out loud and then bit his tongue so as not to wake Iris.

  If some god could spare Iris from two deadly afflictions, Aidan had figured he could put down the jugs for good. He just hadn’t figured how hard it would be. After the fever and cough epidemic, he’d stuck to colored Peach Grove where the neighbors smiling in his face hadn’t set torches to Garnett’s feet. In fact Aidan thought of settling down with a good colored woman, Subie’s grandniece, Luella, if she’d have him. Luella was a handsome, strong gal he could respect. Whenever he checked in on Subie, Luella was there checking on her too. Luella could make a man nervous, eyeing him with a crooked smile and devilish hips.

  Could such a fine woman want a busted-up drunk? The imps laughed in his ears. Aidan opened his eyes. The big guy with the boar’s head just kept clubbing him with the burning birch.

  “Luella be trying to make me fat with her pies and jars of jam!” Aidan told them. Luella had lost her husband, Bubba Jackson, to the coughing sickness. Seeing her dragging ’round, so sad, tugged at his heart. Singing at Iona and Leroy’s one night, Aidan did a song ’bout losing the one you love, just for her. Ever since, Luella looked back at him with ho
pe. She was nothing like Redwood of course, but they could raise Iris, have a few sweet babies of their own, and turn a profit with his farm. That would make a good second life. Yes, sober in Peach Grove would be all right once he fought through the delirium tremens. Sweat streamed from his head, stinging his eyes. Demons didn’t look tired of tormenting him.

  Shaking and wheezing, he stumbled to the door and stood in a cool night wind. The fire imps got blown back by a stiff gust. A shower of falling stars lit up the dark. Such a beautiful sight, and they’d been racing through the sky every night this week, ’less his eyes were playing tricks on him. Watching celestial fireworks calmed him a bit.

  Iris shrieked from the bedroom. Aidan ran back in to her. Still half in dreamland, she stood at the window, banging and hollering and pulling at the new curtains.

  “Wake up now, honey, wake up.” He drew her from the cool draft and hugged away the screams. When she looked him in the eye from this world, not dreamland, he set her back on the bed. “Tell me what’s wrong, sugar. So I can help.”

  She clutched her feet.

  “Breaks my heart, you suffering and me not doing anything.” When she still said nothing, he resorted to threats. “You don’t want me going back to the drink, do you?”

  She shook her head, no. “A demon posse be hounding me out of my dreams.”

  Felt just like a bottle up-side his head. “Who is it?”

  “Bad men…”

  He finished for her. “Men of ash and smoke, burning the backs of horses, chasing behind a haint.”

  “Every night. They don’t scare you none?” She gripped him.

  “Makes me mad is all.”

  “A tall lady with swamp-grass hair. She wear a gush of muddy river water for a dress, face is all shadows and smoke. A turkey buzzard be sitting on her shoulder smacking some bloody lips.” Iris was a baby when they lynched her mama, too young to remember her face, but Garnett Phipps still haunted the little one. “A purple orchid be burning in her hair.”