“Miz Myrtle has been nothing but fine to me. I been treated no kindlier by anyone in my life,” I said to Lucinda May, who had a more moderate amount of good looks than her brother, Banker Perkins. Although she lost in comparison to her brother, I had to admit that in the beauty department, she had fared better than either Miz Myrtle or me.
But any deficiency in good looks was more than made up for by charity in both her words and deeds, unlike her brother, who had made money the study of his life with his banking and all. I let the judgment of Banker Clyde’s preoccupation with money swell inside me until it had almost erased his offer to help with the store and to assist the Sheriff in finding the would-be murderer. I nodded my “thanks” to Lucinda May as I shut the bedroom door.
All those trivial thoughts escaped me as I turned to look upon Miz Myrtle where she lay small in her bed. I thought, only this morning she had started the day as a robust woman. Now she nestled in the feather bed, a gown of worn flannel snuggled clear up to her chin, and as glassy eyed as that China woman on the mantle piece, the one she had been so right proud to acquire.
I sat on the bed beside her and took her hand in mine. I began the conversation with a gentle rub in the very same way that my Ma had rubbed my hand every night. I figured God accepted it as my best prayer, so poor was I at talking direct to Him.
“Miz Myrtle, don’t you worry none about missing that celebration money. There’s a plenty of them statehood celebrators in Hugo still, and most of them bent on drinking. Ain’t it you who warned me to beware as, drink can open the tightest purse?”
In this warm yellow room with Miz Myrtle, I longed for what had been only yesterday, talk of statehood, the store proceeds, and the money we’d been packing away for a trip to New York City itself. Miz Myrtle thought such a trip would allow her to see the finest mercantile stores. So full of high aims was she, that a person like me had to stretch herself tall just to gaze upon them.
But in this moment, what I saw was the faint throb of her heartbeat playing hide and seek in the vein on her temple. I tried to keep thoughts of Ma and Pa locked in the back of my mind, afraid if I opened that door, Miz Myrtle might slip right on past me to join them. The fear of it filled my mouth with cotton. I had to return to the touch of my thumb against the soft insides of her palm in order to calm myself.
My mouth was dry as the dead middle of summer, so I turned my thoughts to Miz Myrtle’s lemonade, which momentarily returned the wetness I needed to once more converse. I said to her, “I intend to open the store in the morning like always. Statehood celebration can make you a richer woman.” I straightened my back as the full of my voice returned once again. I can only credit Jesus with my next idea, the one idea that had a chance of bringing some life into her, if only so she could enjoy a good scold. I felt my smile flicker like a weak flame before I presented His Holy idea in earnest.
“Miz Myrtle, tell me what to do? Banker Clyde Perkins and his sister have taken over the house. Lucinda May is going to sleep in my room, and I don’t take kindly to that, just like I don’t take kindly to Banker Clyde Perkins bedding down with me.” If the hives had not already turned me bright as a ripe tomato, talk of Banker Perkins in my bed would have made me ripe red. I held my breath waiting for the scolding. When it did not come, I gave it another try, knowing as I did, that the blow to her head could have befuddled her thinking. “Do you know what I done this very day?” I asked Miz Myrtle.
“I cleaned out the rest of Beloved’s stuff from the other bedroom. I packed his fancy boots, put them in good dry burlap, and took them to the attic. I folded up every one of his fine shirts with the fancy cuffs stitched in silver threaded stars. Don’t you remember telling me that they came all the way from a special shirt maker in Tennessee? Put them in the empty drawer of that dresser that we hadn’t had no use for. Beloved’s comb, shaving mug, razor strop, and hat I placed in the top of the closet in my room. All this effort just so as Banker Clyde P. Perkins can settle in where he don’t belong.” Miz Myrtle’s vacant stare scared me bad, but determined, I continued with our one-sided talk.
“Ma’am, what am I to do? Banker Perkins thinks me a boy, but I’m a girl, don’t you recall. He intends to bed with me. And I’m sorry for that plain talk, but I don’t rightly know how else to put it.”
I waited for Miz Myrtle’s outrage. I waited for the sermon she would want to deliver upon hearing a thing so scurrilous, but it never came. In my mind, I could see that the door that separated me and my parents had opened just a crack, enough for me to see my Ma’s face. I could not decide if she was calling to help me, or beckoning to Miz Myrtle to join her and Pa. I was so unsettled that I knelt on my knees beside the bed intending to pray.
I could not help myself as a mighty fit of blubbering came pouring out. I took the unused pillow from the other side of the bed and covered my face. The soft collected all the moisture and sound of me. I had never longed for a scolding more, but now I knew I would not get it. I knew I had been given the answer to my question. If Miz Myrtle wasn’t up to a good scold for me taking Banker Clyde Perkins to my bed, there was no mortification to be felt with Lucinda May’s nursing duties. I would stay the course I had started upon. I would be the man I had intended. Some murderer had best beware, cause nothing could keep me from searching him out and seeing that he suffered the pangs of prison, and if I had my way, a good hanging!
“Going to be mighty hard to spend that money I’m going to make for you, unless you get up out of that bed. Lying in bed don’t do a body no good, so you’ve been telling me these many mornings.” I could not help myself from trying to rouse her. “A body can do anything she sets her mind to, so now, get yourself awake Miz Myrtle, we got a murderer to catch and a store to run. Ain’t that reason enough?”
Chapter 5
“Donnie,” I said to myself as I waded in the creek bed, despite the November cold weather, “I reckon you’re poor at starting, but you’re fine in the middle, and right fine at the end.” Talking to myself became my habit in the orphanage, a way to keep alert during the years I’d spent scrubbing already scrubbed floors, a boon to my character, so I was told by the head mistress. It was not uncommon for me to offer myself encouragement when faced with tasks either hard, or for which I had little aptitude. I put finding Miz Myrtle’s would be murderer in both categories.
* * *
The sound of creek water making its way downstream calmed my thinking, which had been racing faster than a fly toward a June picnic. Just who is running this show, I asked? Sheriff Bob Freedom Smith came to mind. Everything inside slowed to a trot that I could manage, and I reminded myself that a good horse minds his rider. Sit on that bank, Gal, I heard the Sheriff instruct, so I made my way to the creek bank where I sat on brittle blond weeds.
“Most folks can’t find their way ’cause they ask all the wrong questions.” I remembered this as the most important learning that Sheriff Smith had ever given to me. I pondered this advice. I flushed with embarrassment when I realized I had been asking the wrong question myself. Instead of who did this I should ask where do I start. I took a few moments to congratulate myself, and I felt the Sheriff’s wholehearted agreement by the ease in my belly.
Sheriff Bob Freedom Smith, never a patient man, jumped right in with assistance. “Start with the crow,” he said to me, and, almost with my next breath came a loud cawing overhead as a group of crows took flight from the opposite creek bank to a nearby tree. Them crows looked to me like they flapped their wings twice as hard as other birds, but it may have been the constant cranky-talk among themselves, which gave me that impression. Wing-flappers is the first thing that came to mind.
The warm sun had made me thirsty, so I cupped my hands into the cold water and took me a long draught before I continued. What did I know about crows? I knew they were solid black. They made an unpleasant kind of chatter. They were bigger than most of our familiar birds. They brought to mind an unexpected remembrance, somewhat of Banker Clyde Perkins, who not
only had crow black hair, but also seemed smarter than other men. Crows seemed smarter than other birds.
I knew lots of folks took crows and ravens as signals of dread. I’m no exception. My first reaction to the dead crow in Miz Myrtle’s hands had been to think it an omen of doom for both of us. Now, after continued discussion with Sheriff Bob Freedom Smith, I came to realize that the crow was not an omen. Every day I saw crows, and never once had I thought it meant the end of me, or one I loved. It was a crow, mangled by some human, that was an omen. So maybe the better question was who did I know to whom a dead crow might have some appeal? The answer was no one. But there was one person of my acquaintance who had a great attraction to live crows. Her name was Sister Sally Sees. Once I knew where to begin, I had no need to sit and think about what to do next. Ain’t it action what makes an idea count for something? As I stood up, that flock of crows took to the air in a loud pool of raucous sound.
* * *
Sister Sally Sees lived about a mile from town. I didn’t know how she came to be in possession of the Turner place, whether by purchase or by kin, but she had lived there for about a year. The small house faced the east, so that, as I approached in early afternoon, the front porch was already shaded. No one in Hugo would have argued with “peculiar” as a description of Sister Sally. Out front of her place she had put a pole in the ground from which a rope extended to the brightly painted wooden horse that folk said was a circus horse. Having never seen a circus horse, I could only take their word for it. But the pink and red stripes of it had a circus look, the look that can make a body smile before they even know it. I stood in her yard peering at the horse, when I heard, “Simone is not averse to being petted, child.” Her voice sounded as cloudy as that chalk-white eye of hers that was sometimes set free of the black patch that was her custom to wear.
I turned to stare. She did not wear men’s clothes to be thought a man like I did. She wore men’s clothes because she did not care what the women folk thought of her. The men made it clear what they thought of her decision with their ogling of her strong muscled legs, revealed in trousers tighter than the pants worn by any man I’d had occasion to see. Her eyes did not falter from those looks she got, but, bold as a noon sun, stared right back with a pleased countenance. Her small waist cinched with a strand of rope, had a corseted look. I knew the smallness of that waist didn’t come from a corset, but I’m ashamed to say how it was I knew such a thing. I’d heard strong talk between fellers on that aspect of her body, me being a feller to everyone but Miz Myrtle. I’d heard some red-faced things, but thankfully, my red face was attributed to my youth and not the fact of my femaleness.
Sister Sally had no look of any gypsy I’d ever read about, the ones that can tell a fortune by reading them special cards or by looking at the palm of a hand. Her hair was red as a rooster crown. Her only attempt to protect the white face sprinkled with a crop of rusty freckles was a wide-brimmed hat under which she wore a scarf tied in the back, hiding all but the braid that dangled over her shoulder like a friendly hand.
“Hungry?” she asked.
Me, I’m always hungry, and, about most things honest, so I said, “Yes,” but I could not bring myself to add “ma’am,” though good manners, Miz Myrtle manners, dictated that I should.
I followed her into the dark house. My eyes adjusted quickly, having stood on the shaded porch to rub the creek mud off my trousers. My nose fairly twitched with joy, so good the smell of chicken and dumplings that greeted me. My belly growled with pleasure, and I put my hand on it as a caution for calm.
She pointed to a chair at the table and I sat. She dipped me a good portion and set the plate in front of me. I did not pick up my spoon until she had taken her seat and had eaten the first bite. She nodded at me to begin. We ate in total silence. Her one green eye watched me closely, but at the same time maintained its distance. Only the cloudy eye reached right into me looking for secrets. I resisted the urge to stare back for fear of what it might see.
After she had scraped the last bit of juice with her spoon and licked it clean, she asked, “And how is Miz Myrtle doing?”
Impertinent, I replied, “You’re the fortune reader, why don’t you tell me?”
She leaned back in her chair and laughed, the most pleasing sound I’d ever heard next to Ma and Pa’s voices, and I could feel my resistance melt like butter on a hot biscuit.
“She is lying in that bed of hers with eyes that don’t want to see anything, even those she most loves,” I finally said.
Sister Sally, took off her hat, got the black eye-patch out of her shirt pocket, and tied it around her head. “My eye bothers some. Does it bother you?”
“Yes,” I said. I did not say anything else, not thank you for the dumplings, neither did I tell her how good they were. I let my plate do the talking for me. Sheriff Bob Freedom Smith did not talk. Sometimes his silence pulled things from people that they never intended to tell. I resolved to keep quiet, after a right hard struggle. I did my best imitation of the Sheriff, but unlike him, I had to do it with downcast eyes.
Unfortunately, Sister Sally Sees was easy with quiet, and so we sat until the crawlies took hold of me, then I stood up from the table. I remembered not to offer to wash the plates, as men never had to bother with such.
She said to me then, “Do you like crows?” And when she said that, I was struck with dumb silence when more talking would have been the better way.
After some time, I did manage to say, “Yes.”
She got up from the table. “Well, and so do I,” she said. That was all. She reached for my plate and I was dismissed. I took out of that place as quick as I could, trying not to look as frightened as I felt. When I heard her laughter, the welcome of it had left. I started off at a trot, but soon it became an all out run. That fierce bravery I had polished for Sheriff Bob Freedom Smith to see once upon time, could not be found. And I had an awful feeling about the dumplings I had eaten. I could almost taste the black feathers of a crow.
Chapter 6
When I got back to the house, company came a calling. I stood in front of the sideboard and admired the burnt sugar cake brought by Matilda Greenspun. The jar of muskadine preserves brought by Doreatha Witherspoon tempted me sorely, as I had previously enjoyed them at a recent church social so much that Miz Myrtle put a restraining hand on me when I reached for my fourth biscuit upon which to spread them. But fine as these were, they could not match the fragrance of Alice Dunn’s mess of fried chicken that Lucinda May had put on the table. The townswomen thought highly of Miz Myrtle, who always managed to add something extra when they came to her store.
I got the plates to set the table and Lucinda May smiled me her “thank you.” “You’ll be pleased to know, Donnie, that Miz Myrtle let me feed her a cup of broth this afternoon,” Lucinda said as she put the cornbread, fresh from the oven, on the table.
I let a grin take over my face. “She just needs to rest up a bit. She’ll come around. Miz Myrtle don’t take no guff from anybody,” I said to Lucinda May as she ladled the brown beans into a bowl for me to take to the table. A platter of fried potatoes and onions was next. I reckoned it wasn’t going to take as long as I previously thought to wipe away the taste of them crow dumplings, them that was served to me by Sister Sally Sees.
Just as we took our seats at the table, another caller knocked on the door. I excused myself to Banker Clyde and Lucinda May and went to the door. I knew Jesus had decided to cooperate after all when I saw who stood on the front porch, none other than bowlegged Deputy Harris Suggs.
“Find out anything today?” I startled at Banker Clyde’s voice coming from behind me.
“No, sir, not a dang thing. No one saw nothing. No one heard nothing. Not even any strangers was spied around the store.” Deputy Suggs stood in the doorway holding a cowboy hat in hands. Neither the hat, nor his hand, looked like they had ever seen a lick of work.
“Just come by to pay my respects to Miz Myrtle. How’s she holding u
p?” Suggs ignored me and spoke to Banker Clyde.
“Come on in, Deputy. You hungry? We’re just sitting down to supper, sir, and you are most welcome to share in the bounty our good neighbors brought today.” Banker Clyde said, as he shut the door behind Suggs. I noted that Suggs stood looking around, with every appearance of taking an inventory of Miz Myrtle’s belongings.
“Miz Myrtle is about the same. But we have hope in her full recovery.” Banker Clyde led the way into the dining room taking for granted that the hungry look in Sugg’s eyes was about food. Me, I had no such illusion.
The man had been seeking admittance to this very castle since I’d first arrived in Hugo. He came a calling at the store most every day, inviting Miz Myrtle for a carriage ride, or walk, or to attend the Wednesday prayer service at the Baptist Church. Miz Myrtle had a way of making no sound like—Yes , I just might one of these days take you up on your most kind offer. I knew she tried to be kind while at the same time counting heavily on the idea that he would take after the next woman widowed, a prospect that seemed a sure bet in these precarious times.
I never said to her, as I thought to say in my own head, “Miz Myrtle, men like Suggs never hear the word ‘no,’ even when they’re hit between the eye sockets with it, and when you dip ‘no’ in a cup of sugar, the man ain’t never going to go away, despite the prospect of a new widow.” I didn’t want Miz Myrtle to take such a statement the wrong way. I trusted that Suggs admired the likes of Miz Myrtle. She’s a woman to be admired, let me tell you. But I knew his love for the store outweighed his admiration for Miz Myrtle, something like ten to one. She, a little turned by the attention, didn’t seem to understand that the way I did. My telling her would’ve pulled that rug right from under her feet. Besides, I never saw this thing coming. Now Suggs was at the top of my list of suspects, right along with Sister Sally Sees, who I was sure, had fed me crow dumplings.
Foxy Statehood Hens and Murder Most Fowl (The Foxy Hens) Page 11