Old Wounds

by Vicki Lane

  And now Sam’s gone…and now Mike’s back…. Did Moon tell him about Sam? Could that be why?

  30.

  MISS BIRDIE’S DAYBOOK

  Monday, October 24

  So the brother’s back. And how does she feel about that? Surprised, for sure. But there’s something more going on…there’s a back story of some kind with her and this Mike Mullins.

  The forty-minute drive from Marshall County to AB Tech for his 10 o’clock class had become so routine that Phillip Hawkins was free to give almost all of his attention to pondering the implications of the return of Mike Mullins. He had noted Elizabeth’s agitation at hearing from this long-lost …friend? neighbor? lover? What the hell was this guy to her? And why is he reappearing after so many years?

  The memory of the handsome figure in the old photo taunted him. Tall, lots of blond hair, a friggin’ Aryan poster boy. And then there’s me—balding, something of a gut, just barely taller than her. Shit…what if…? It didn’t sound like there were plans to see each other…. Of course, he could call again….

  The cell phone on his belt vibrated and he took advantage of a nearby exit to pull over.

  “Hawkins…Yeah, I think I’ve got something…. No, it’s at the house…. I couldn’t make any sense of it but I think it could be the key. I’m going to spend some time studying it; if I can’t make any sense out of it by Thursday, I’ll express it to DC and let Del’s boys take a look…. No, don’t bother…besides, she doesn’t know you…. Hell, Gabby, she might think you were one of Landrum’s people and call the law on your ass.”

  “Lizzie Beth, you don’t look so pert this evening. What’s ailin’ you? Git you a chair and come set a spell. You kin keep me company whilst I tie this quilt.”

  A wooden frame covered by a bright quilt stitched from large, irregular blocks of red and orange corduroy, highlighted by a few smaller bits of purple and black, hung from the ceiling of Miss Birdie’s living room. The quilting frame was so large and the room so small that the few pieces of furniture had been pushed to the walls, and Elizabeth was forced to sidle around them to find a straight-backed chair.

  “Let me help for a while, Miss Birdie.” Elizabeth reached for the ball of black crochet thread and took a stout needle from the faded red pincushion resting in the middle of the half-tied quilt. “Who’s this one for?”

  She had finished her morning chores, and after lunch, realizing that she was unconsciously waiting for the phone to ring, hoping that it might be Mike, she had forced herself to leave the house. What’s wrong with you, Elizabeth? What about Phillip? And for all you know, Mike has a wife and children—grandchildren, maybe—back in California. Get over it, for god’s sake…. But he did say he’d seeme soon.

  With a last glance at the silent telephone, she had fled the house, remembering to lock the doors—a still unfamiliar task that aroused her anger each time she turned the latch. Just do it, Elizabeth, Phillip had urged her. It won’t be forever, but for now you need to keep things locked up…take precautions. Blaine’s got people keeping an eye on the place, and I know Julio and Homero are on the alert. And you’ve got your gun.

  As she drove down her road, she could see Julio and Homero, bent over the beds of frost-nipped nasturtiums, harvesting the ripened seeds for next year’s crop. She stopped the car and got out.

  “I’m going down the road to see Miss Birdie, Julio.” She had to shout to make herself heard above the noise of the boom-box that was Homero’s constant companion. “You all keep an eye out, okay?”

  “Sí, Elizabeta, no problema.” Julio’s tanned face split in a wide grin and he patted the scabbarded machete at his waist. “We take care of anyone who don’t belong here.”

  God help the wandering Jehovah’s Witness who makes the mistake of trying our holler. At least Julio knows the meter reader.

  The needle made a satisfying pop as she poked it through the thick layers of the brilliant bedcovering and pulled the strong thread through the pieced top, the fluffy poly-fill batting center, and the sturdy flannel that was the back of the quilt. “Quilt” by courtesy only, as its fabric was far too heavy to allow for the intricate decorative running stitches that set off seams or traced fancy patterns while performing the mundane task of holding the three layers together. Miss Birdie’s colorful creation, a far more utilitarian product, was tied at intervals with strong square knots, and would be completed in a few hours, rather than the months that a true quilt would require.

  “Now, this is fer Calven, Dor’thy’s nephew. He’s a sweet child, Lizzie Beth, fer all that he’s not had no proper raisin’.” Birdie’s gnarled fingers drove the needle relentlessly through the multiple layers.

  She peered over the tops of her gold-rimmed spectacles at Elizabeth. “And looks like he’s goin’ to be on Dor’thy’s hands fer good—that sorry mama of hisn, that Prin Ridder’s run off, just like her sister done. There she was in the hospital, takin’ on like one thing and givin’ out that she ain’t got long to live—why they took up a special collection for her at church, to help with the doctor’s bill, and they was planning on holding a singin’ too.”

  Miss Birdie jabbed her silver needle into a purple square with unnecessary force and continued. “Dor’thy told me that when her sister Mag went to the hospital yesterday, Prin was gone—had slipped out in the night, takin’ all that money with her. Dor’thy believes that Prin was in trouble with the law and hadn’t never been sick atall, just bidin’ her time till she could leave out of here. She’d been took up, several years back of this, fer passin’ bad checks, and Dor’thy believes that Prin was up to her old tricks again.”

  “What about Calven? Surely she’ll come back for him?”

  “Dor’thy don’t think so. She says Prin ain’t no kind of a mother to that poor boy. And Mag ain’t able to look atter him.” Pop…pop…swish. Another length of thread was set into the quilt, looped, and firmly knotted by those implacable old fingers.

  “Dor’thy’ll see he’s raised right. Calven’ll be better off with her, oncet he gets over thinkin’ his mama cares a lick fer him.”

  Miss Birdie cut another length of black thread and brandished her worn scissors at Elizabeth, Like a cheerful little Atropos, Elizabeth thought, seeing her neighbor as a rather incongruous personification of one of the Fates.

  “Lizzie Beth, when you was here before, talkin’ about that Maythorn child, well, I got to thinkin’ back on that time. You know how I keep my daybook. Well, I got to studyin’.”

  Miss Birdie pointed her scissors toward the silently flickering television set. “Just reach me that book that’s settin’ atop the TV, if you don’t care, Lizzie Beth.”

  The little hardbacked composition book was faded and the label on the front cover was marked “1986” in Birdie’s spidery handwriting. Elizabeth knew that her neighbor had kept a kind of journal all her married life—every day she recorded the weather, what she did, who she saw…anything unusual. With her prodigious memory and this additional written record, Miss Birdie Gentry was a veritable archive of life on Ridley Branch over the past sixty-odd years.

  She took the book from Elizabeth and began to leaf through it. “April 12, old Pet brought two bull-calves…July 23, put up forty-four quarts of runner beans…August 9, that was that dreadful rain…Here it is: ‘October 31, brown Ford truck passed by right before first dark. Believe it was Maythorn’s uncle, the one that took her and Rosie off to Cherokee back on October 4. Still got them old long braids, looks like two big blacksnakes.’”

  As Elizabeth turned up her driveway, she was startled to see Calven sitting patiently on the big flat rock at the foot of the road. He seemed unalarmed at the sight of her, waving cheerily and coming to the side of her car when she stopped and put down her window.

  “Hey there, Miz Goodweather.” He stood on tiptoe to peer into her car. “Where’s ol’ Yoursa and Molly?”

  He already seemed to have put on weight and the unhealthy gray pallor was giving way to a sun-touched p
inkness. A knapsack with schoolbooks spilling out of it lay on the ground nearby.

  “Hey, Calven. I guess the dogs are up at the house.” She eyed him curiously. “I’ve been at Miss Birdie’s and she told me you were staying with Dorothy. What are you doing here? Won’t she wonder where you are?”

  “Naw, ol’ Dor’thy said I could ride the bus home with the Robertses. Travis Roberts is in my room at school; him and me’s friends. We been playin’ in the woods up there, but I’m supposed to meet Dor’thy here at five.” Calven held out a thin wrist adorned with a wide-banded watch. “She give me this here watch so’s I’d be on time.” He gazed at the timepiece with immense satisfaction. “I ain’t never had me no watch till now.”

  Elizabeth glanced at the car’s clock. “It’s only four-thirty, Calven; you could have stayed up there a little longer.”

  The boy shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “I come away ’cause they was fixin’ to sneak into that big ol’ place up yon. Son, I tell you, I had me enough of that place when I was there with Bib. You know, the Robertses live just this side of that big ol’ wall, and Travis has knocked footholes in it so’s to climb it. They even take that little Asheley with ’em.”

  He stepped close. In a low tone, he confided, “That Asheley, she’s just a girl, but she’s the worst of ’em all. She’s got her an invisible friend named Maydern, or some such, and her and Maydern makes play houses in the woods. Miz Goodweather, do you think there’s such things as ghostes?”

  BACK TO CHEROKEE

  The Qualla Boundary, October 1986

  At last October had come, and with it the long-awaited trip back to Cherokee. When Maythorn and Rosie had gone to Cherokee last time, Mrs. Barbie had driven them, complaining in a whiny voice all the long way. The traffic was terrible; the stores were tacky; Maythorn’s father’s family were rude and backward—the trip had seemed to go on forever.

  But this time Mrs. Barbie and Krystalle were off at a pageant, so Driver came for them in his truck. They set off as before, down Ridley Branch, but instead of crossing the bridge that would take them to the road that led to the big highway and Asheville, Driver turned left onto Bear Tree Creek.

  Rosemary nudged Maythorn, who seemed unconcerned. Maythorn, she whispered in her friend’s ear, he’s going the wrong way.

  Driver must have heard her, because he reached over Maythorn and squeezed Rosemary’s knee. Hey, Rosie, he said, I’m taking you by a secret Indian shortcut. This is the way the old Cherokees would have come, back when they traveled over here to hunt.

  Rosemary’s heart thudded with excitement. She knew that Indians had hunted in Marshall County long, long years ago. Pa and Mum had found spearheads and flakes of flint in the big field near the barn. And she herself had once found a tiny bleached seashell with two holes drilled in it. Mum had said that it had probably been sewn to a shirt as a decoration. Just think, Rosie, this shell got here all the way from the ocean or the gulf. Maybe an Indian down on the Gulf Coast found it and traded it to someone who lived a little farther north, and she traded it, and so on till it ended up here—far, far away from the salt water.

  Driver drove to the end of Bear Tree Creek, to the place where it turned into two narrow roads. He pointed the old truck up the road to the right and they began to climb, twisting and turning, higher and higher up to the top of the mountain.

  The road was narrow and unpaved, with woods pressing close on either side, and Rosemary became Shining Deer, the only woman who, because of her superb skill with a spear, was allowed to accompany a band of hunters. She herself had slain three fat bucks.

  We’re at the top now, Driver announced. This is what the white folks call Troublesome Gap. And down there’s Spring Creek.

  As they descended, the woods changed to farms and pastures, and houses, more and more houses. They passed through a tiny cluster of buildings that Driver said was a place named Trust. And on up here a little ways is Luck.

  Maythorn pointed to a store that bore a sign reading PINK J. PLEMMONS, GROCERIES AND FEEDS, and she and Rosemary both began to giggle at the idea of someone named Pink.

  And then they were on a highway, and the lake called Junaluska was to their right. That lake’s named for a famous Cherokee chief, Driver told them; no one but rich white folks live there now. He spat out his window and went on, The white folks love us Indians when we’ve been dead long enough.

  The roar of the waterfall was even louder than she had remembered, and once again the sight of the white foam tracery against the sheer rock cliff caused her to stand mesmerized. And Granny Thorn was waiting for them, like before. She hugged them both and hurried them into her cabin, where a fire was crackling in the hearth. From out of the ashes she pulled a black iron skillet, full of what looked like cornbread. She spoke to Maythorn in Cherokee and Maythorn nodded, a little dubiously.

  She wants you girls to have some of her chestnut bread, Driver explained, cutting his eyes over to the hesitant Maythorn. Go on, Rosie, try some; it’s good.

  As they helped themselves to the crumbly, slightly sweet bread, Granny Thorn continued to talk in the whispering sounds that were the Cherokee language. Driver tried to keep pace with her, putting her words into English. Granny says that it’s the Fall Festival this weekend and we’ll all be going. She wants to show you about the dances—and to Rosemary’s amazed delight, Granny Thorn began a slow shuffling step, accompanying herself with a repetitive chant in her high, thin, old voice. Her gnarled and calloused bare feet beat out a rhythm on the dusty planks of the floor.

  It was the most wonderful day she had ever spent. Granny had presented her and Maythorn with real Cherokee dresses of a deep rose-red to wear to the festival. And at the festival, she and Maythorn had been taken under the wing of a pretty young woman who seemed to know Driver very well. Sary Littlejohn had shown them how to do the Beaver Dance, and best of all, had asked Rosemary what clan she belonged to!

  She thought I was a Cherokee! Rosemary hugged the thought to herself as they jolted back up the road to Big Cove and Granny’s house by the waterfall. Maythorn’s head was nodding and Granny and Driver were talking softly.

  Some of us are going up to Swimmer’s house later tonight for the Man Dance, she heard Driver tell Granny. If don’t anyone do it, it’ll be forgotten. And seems like to me, us Cherokee need it as much now as we ever did.

  31.

  THE BOOGER DANCE

  Tuesday, October 25

  The People were crowded into the house, hip to hip, knee to back, close-packed on the big, smooth-worn logs that circled the central hearth. A faint sheen of sweat covered their eager faces, for although First Frost had come and the night air outside was crisp, the smoky interior was warm with the heat of so many bodies. All eyes were fixed on the tanned deerskin that covered the doorway, and when it was drawn back briefly as one of the men stepped outside to relieve himself, the huge orange moon hanging impaled on twisted, leafless branches illuminated strange shapes flitting back and forth in the purple night, manlike but for their grotesque heads.

  The children squirmed beside their mothers in an ecstasy of anticipation and terrified delight as the five Callers, with their seed-filled gourds, and the lead Caller, with his water drum, accompanied the dancers circling the hearth. The pebble-filled tortoise shells bound to the legs of the dancers provided an extra layer of percussion to the measured thump of feet tracing the age-old pattern of the stomp dance.

  The sixth song ended. In the momentary hush, a pale shiny face, its long, obscenely drooping nose surrounded by black fur, insinuated itself into the sliver of space between the deerskin and the doorframe. The hideous face surveyed the expectant crowd for a long moment then withdrew. There was a prolonged, inhumanly loud farting sound from beyond the door. And suddenly, in a jumble of flailing limbs and lewd gestures, the six masked boogers clumped into the lodge and the Booger Dance began.

  Rosemary hunched forward, lost in the words as they scrolled down the computer screen. A recently poste
d article on a Web site devoted to Cherokee lore had popped up in response to her search. Suddenly, vague, half-remembered images had coalesced into a firm conviction.

  This is it; one of the things I’ve been trying to remember. Driver was going to a dance at a neighbor’s house. But there were only grown-ups there. And it was in a regular house, with the furniture pushed back to leave room for the dancing. We weren’t supposed to be there, but when Granny Thorn went to sleep, Maythorn whispered to me that she knew the way to where they were dancing. We snuck out and followed a path through the woods to another little cabin. We could hear the drum and the rattles and we watched through the window until someone saw us. Then Driver came out and took us back home.

  He had been annoyed with them for interrupting his good time, but beneath the irritation was a surprised admiration. You girls came through the woods in the dark? Pretty good Indian stuff. But this dance is just for grown-ups—parts of it, a little X-rated maybe.

  As he accompanied them along the dark path back to Granny’s cabin, he had explained the significance of the Booger Dance. See, the boogers are the bad guys, like the boogeyman—nothing to do with the stuff that comes out of your nose, he had said as Rosemary stifled a rising giggle. We call it the Man Dance, too, because… He had hesitated, but both girls knew what he was talking about, having seen some of the dancers with penis-like gourds between their legs, making a great show of their artificial equipment. Well, that’s just another name for it. But the reason we do the Booger Dance is to make fun of our enemies. You see? You saw how the dancers were acting silly and falling down. The dance tells us to laugh at the bad guys and not be scared of them.