That morning, however, the still, sodden air was silent. I ran barefoot down the back porch steps into the yard and felt the damp Bermuda grass between my toes.
“Henry!” Cousin Minn yodeled. “Oooh-ooh, Henry, time for breakfast.”
No response. Although I considered myself fully grown at twelve, I didn’t want to have to explain to Cousin Minn that Henry had been a step slower than some possum or raccoon. I just hoped we wouldn’t find his bloody body under one of the trees. It would be much better if he simply disappeared.
We searched her back and front yards, the neighbors’ yards, and even the alley that ran behind the house where we put out the trash twice a week for the garbage men.
“He never went into the alley, Louise,” Cousin Minn said as she slammed the solid wooden gate shut. The fence was made of six-foot wood slats that leaned slightly but still stood so close together that not even a grown cat could slip between them.
We walked up the long stretch of the back yard, checking the fig tree and the pear tree for the twentieth time without success. Henry could probably flutter over a six-foot fence, but I saw no reason he would try. He was too fat to enjoy fluttering. He preferred a stately meander.
Cousin Minn collapsed on the bottom step of the back porch and burst into tears. I was horrified. I couldn’t count the hours I had spent slumped against her meager bosom while I sobbed my heart out about everything from the loss of my favorite doll to my grandfather’s heart attack. She had comforted me.
I had no idea how to comfort her.
I sat beside her and patted her hand. The skin felt like fine silk stretched over toothpicks. I looked up at her tear-stained face and realized that she was old. And with that came the realization that I could lose her the way she had lost Henry. I could not bear it. I put my arms around her, and we clung together on the back steps wailing like a Greek chorus.
I have no idea how long we stayed that way before the screen door to the porch opened and banged shut above us. A moment later, I heard Aunt Bertie’s voice. “Minn, Louise, have y’all lost your minds? Get up from there this minute. What’s wrong?”
I sniffled, “It’s Henry, Aunt Bertie. He’s missing.”
“Huh. All this wailing over a tomfool banty rooster? Get up this minute and come in the house, Minn. Do you realize you are still wearing your nightdress? You’re half naked, and your hair looks like the rats have taken up permanent residence.”
Minn continued to cry. I was left to do the talking.
“But he’s gone,” I wailed, bemoaning not so much the loss of the rooster as the terrible sense of loss that seemed to pervade my soul.
“He’ll either come back in his own time, or he won’t. If he doesn’t, we’ll get another one. Minn, he is just a bird.”
On that note, Cousin Minn was up and facing Aunt Bertie so fast she almost tipped me off the step. I had never seen her so mad. “He is not just a bird. He is a hero, and if he is still alive, I intend to find him.” She stalked up the stairs and shoved past her sister and into the house. “And you can fix your own breakfast.”
The screen door slammed behind her.
Aunt Bertie and I simply gaped at one another before she turned on her heel and went back inside to get ready to go to work. She did some kind of accounting-bookkeeping thing that brought in what money they had, which wasn’t much. She tolerated me, but then she seemed barely to tolerate the whole world. I was scared of her, but I tried never to let her know it.
At the top of the stairs, she turned back and gave me that look—the one that makes kids feel about two inches tall and rotten to the core. “Your feet are dirty, Louise, and I doubt that you have brushed your teeth. Please go and do so.”
We didn’t go in for ‘ma’am’ and ‘sir’ much in my family, but I always ma’amed Aunt Bertie. I did so now.
* * * *
While I ate my cereal, I could hear Cousin Minn on the telephone to the neighbors asking whether anyone knew the whereabouts of Henry. From her replies, no one did, but they all seemed sympathetic.
Aunt Bertie left to meet her ride at the end of the street without speaking to her sister. They had an old Hudson that Cousin Minn drove occasionally, but Aunt Bertie’s friends drove her to her job down to Bigelow, and someone always picked her up for church on Sunday, so the Hudson didn’t get much use.
Cousin Minn did not go to church. I was six or seven before I realized that, and when I asked her why she didn’t, she said she’d discuss religion with me when I was older. Period.
Now, my family are all big Baptists and have been since we got to Georgia sometime in the eighteenth century. I thought the fact that nobody tried to save Cousin Minn’s immortal soul and get her to accept Jesus as her personal savior was odd. One day, I asked my mother if Cousin Minn was going to hell because she wasn’t a Christian.
She didn’t smack me, but she came close. Then she explained to me in no uncertain terms that Cousin Minn was a very good Christian even if she didn’t go to church and never to mention the subject again to anyone. So I didn’t. But I kept worrying nonetheless.
I suggested now that it might help if we prayed for Henry’s safe return. That brought on more tears. Cousin Minn hugged me and said she’d been praying hard ever since she realized he hadn’t crowed at five-thirty.
Despite my personal aversion to Henry, I prayed as well. I knew how much he meant to her, and I hated to see how miserable she was not knowing what had happened.
I spent the morning hand-printing signs that said, “Reward for Return of Missing Rooster.” Then gave a description of Henry, who really was a handsome bird with his long russet tail and his brown plummage.
Cousin Minn and I tacked the signs to at least a dozen telephone poles—which pretty much meant all the poles in Mossy Creek. By the time we got back to the house, we were both faint from the heat. Since there were no answering machines, we had no way of knowing whether anyone had called about Henry or not. While I gobbled down a homemade pimento cheese sandwich made with Worcestershire sauce just the way I liked it, Cousin Minn fidgeted. She never ate much anyway, but so far as I could tell, she hadn’t had a mouthful all day.
And she was tired. I could see that in her eyes.
After lunch, I took my current Nancy Drew mystery out on the front porch and stretched out in the glider to try to read and catch some breeze. A few minutes later, Cousin Minn came out with her hat on her head and her purse in her hand.
“Louise, you are old enough to stay by yourself for a few minutes. I am going to the crossroads store to put up one of those signs you made.”
The crossroads store was a couple of miles down South Bigelow outside of town. Surely she planned to drive, and if so, I intended to go along. Signs were one thing. Ice cream was quite another.
We drove to the small grocery, put the sign on their bulletin board, and bought me an ice cream cone and half a watermelon for dinner.
As we were crossing the dirt parking lot to get back into the old Hudson, Albert Whit sidled up to us. The Whits were about the only black family in Mossy Creek back then, and Mr. Albert had a reputation as a good farmer who minded his own business. He wore an old Panama straw hat that had once been very fine, overalls that were patched but clean and ironed, and a pair of fine leather shoes that had been cut along the inside to accommodate his bunions. “Ma’am,” he said quietly.
Cousin Minn turned to him and smiled. “Yes?”
“You needs to give up looking for your bird.” His voice was nearly a whisper, and he kept looking over his shoulder as he spoke. “You ain’t gonna find him. Not in this world.”
Cousin Minn’s face froze. “Are you saying that you know he’s dead?”
The man shook his head. “Good as. You get you another.” He started to walk away.
Cousin Minn followed him around the corner of the building and under a shed where firewood was sold in the wintertime. “Just a minute, Mr. Whit. Please, wait!” She put her hand on his arm. He frowned. To h
ave a white woman touch him worried him, and with some justification in those days.
She dropped her hand. “Please, if you know anything about Henry, help me find him. He is very precious to me.”
The old man shook his head, but his voice was gentle. “He good as gone. Come nightfall, he’ll be out of this world for sho’.”
She huffed. “You are speaking in riddles. Who took my bird? Do you know where he is?”
“Shouldn’t ‘a said nothin’.”
“But you did.” She pulled out her change purse and extracted a five-dollar bill—a huge sum for a reward. “Tell me where I can find my rooster and this is yours.”
“You keep your money, ma’am. If you’re that determined, then all right. They’s some old boys comes through here looking through the trash, looking for things to take.”
“Burglars?”
“No’m. Just takes what they can see. I heard ‘em talking ‘bout your bird. What a fine cock he was. Saying how they’d like to try him, see how he’d do.”
“I do not know what you’re talking about.”
“I didn’t think they’d steal no bird, but when I heard you in there, I knowed they must ‘a done it.”
“For what, for pity’s sake?”
“Fighting, ma’am. That’s a fighting cock you got there, and a fine one at that. I seen him in your yard a time or two.”
“Henry? Fight? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“He’s a fighter all right. And them ole boys, they runs a fight a couple of nights a month down in the bushes behind the switchin’ yards down in Bigelow. They got a fight tonight. To my mind, that’s where your bird’ll end up.”
Cousin Minn was too stunned to hang onto it. As he scuttled away, she called after him, “Where behind the switching yards?”
He stopped. “Don’t you even be thinking of going there or sending anybody. Po-lice leaves those boys alone. Me too.”
“Are they white or colored?”
He whispered, “They white men. Now you go on home, and don’t tell nobody I talked to you.”
He disappeared into the shadows around the back of the store.
I put my arm around Cousin Minn’s waist and leaned my head against her shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
She shook me off. “It is too soon to be sorry. Come along, Louise, we have work to do.”
Cousin Minn drove to the rail yards in that old Hudson, bouncing over the rutted gravel paths along the far side where the locust trees and the wild roses and the honeysuckle grew in profusion.
We turned up every track and path. Finally, we found a rutted space where the gravel showed that several cars had recently parked. A narrow path led off through the underbrush.
“Stay here, Louise,” Cousin Minn said as she climbed down from the Hudson. “I am going to investigate.”
She hadn’t taken a dozen steps when I plastered myself to her back and grabbed her arm. “Come back. You can’t go down there. Lord only knows what would happen if there’s somebody down there.”
She shook off my arm and kept walking. I was scared to death as I followed. She was acting like a total lunatic who belonged in a home, and all over a cursed chicken!
Ahead we could see the dying sunlight on an open patch. She did have sense enough to creep, although I don’t see how an Indian scout could be silent walking through that mess. I kept whispering, “Go ‘way, snake,” and trying to stamp my feet—but silently.
We smelled it before we saw it. I had never seen a cockpit before. This one was only a bunch of rough plywood pieces nailed up around a dusty area to form a sort of amphitheater. Old lawn chairs and broken down sofas with the stuffing coming out sat around the edges of the pit. Behind the far side were stacked wire cages. Empty wire cages.
Nobody was there, thank God.
But there weren’t any birds there either.
“Pee-eeew,” I whispered. The place smelled of drunken male sweat, the dregs of old liquor, and chicken droppings. Over everything lay a metallic odor like an old copper pot left too long on the stove. Blood, but whether chicken or human or a mixture of the two I couldn’t tell.
The fear and the scent and the place made my stomach turn. I began to retch and the remains of that ice cream cone erupted.
“Lean over, Louise,” Cousin Minn pushed my head over toward the honeysuckle.
When I had finished, she grabbed my hand. “Come on, child. Lord, what am I thinking bringing you to a place like this?”
I flew back to that Hudson and hung my head out the car window like a dog all the way home.
“You gonna call Chief Cochran?” I asked as we pulled up in the driveway. Before the Royden dynasty began, Nocturne Cochran was Mossy Creek’s answer to Andy Griffith.
“You heard that old man. The police know to avoid this place. Calling them would do little good. Obviously, the fights start at night after dark.”
“So I guess that’s it.” I climbed out of the car. I felt God-awful. I itched from the mosquitoes, the chiggers, and my own sweat. My stomach kept giving little aftershocks. Somehow that watermelon didn’t sound nearly so appetizing as it had.
As we climbed out of the Hudson, Aunt Bertie appeared on the front porch in an apron. She was holding a big soup spoon. “Minn, where on earth have you been? I was worried sick…”
I saw her eyes light on the Hudson, which was covered in muddy splotches from the puddles we’d driven through and caked with dust from the dry spots. “My land, what have you been doing?”
“We went to the grocery, then because it was so hot, I took Louise for a little drive to cool off.” She sailed into the house while I stood dumbfounded behind her. I had never heard her utter even the smallest falsehood, yet that was a flat lie, and we both knew it. She didn’t so much as look back over her shoulder at me, so sure was she that I’d back her up.
And I did. I managed an “Uh-huh,” followed by a swift “Yes, ma’am,” before I scuttled by Aunt Bertie who was wielding that spoon like a weapon.
Cousin Minn shut her bedroom door, and I heard the slide go home. She had locked the door! This was an entirely different woman from the Cousin Minn with whom I had spent almost every weekend and half the summer since I was big enough to walk.
I crept out the front door and down the driveway to the backyard so that I could avoid Aunt Bertie and whatever she had concocted for dinner—black-eyed peas, probably, and sliced tomatoes from the garden. The watermelon still sat on the back seat of the Hudson. It was much too hot to eat before tomorrow evening.
I spent twenty minutes calling for Henry and feeding his ‘ladies,’ then went in to dinner. I must admit I ate like a field hand, chigger bites and all.
Aunt Bertie tried to commiserate with Cousin Minn, but she merely dropped her head meekly and moved her food around with her fork.
Despair.
I felt sorry for her, but there wasn’t anything we could do we hadn’t done. I didn’t want to think about Henry being torn apart by another fighting cock, but at least he’d die doing what he had apparently been bred for.
After dinner, I cleaned up the kitchen and took a bath without being told to. I heard Cousin Minn gargling and brushing her teeth, and watched her come out of the bathroom in her nightdress with her hair neatly braided. She and Aunt Bertie slept in separate bedrooms on opposite sides of the small bungalow, while I slept just down the hall from Cousin Minn. She stopped in to say goodnight, and I told her again how sorry I was.
She thanked me and turned away. But there was something about the set of her shoulders that did not speak of misery. I knew as clearly as though someone had spoken the words in my head that she was up to something.
Surely she didn’t plan to go back and accost those rowdies at their game! Even Cousin Minn could not be that naïve. Why, she’d get herself cut to pieces or thrown into the pit with the roosters or God knew what all.
I put my clothes back on and found the old flashlight I kept to read under the covers after I was supposed to be
asleep.
Then I unhooked the screen from the open front window of my bedroom and crawled out. I’d done it a million times. I knew precisely how far away I had to land to avoid winding up in the hydrangeas. I slipped around to the far side of the Hudson and slid in, hoping the dome light wouldn’t alert anyone to what I was doing.
Miraculously, it didn’t go on. I checked and saw that someone—obviously Cousin Minn—had unscrewed it. So I was right. She was planning to slip out.
I climbed into the space between the back and front seats and hunkered down. The carpet smelled musty like old dirt and prickled where it touched my skin. I was sure I was going to have a full blown sneezing attack. I stuck my finger under my nose where the nerves are and kept it there.
It seemed like hours before I saw the front door open and shut. Cousin Minn came down the stairs with her purse. But she was carrying something else. Something long that she held straight up like a spear. Please God, I thought, let her not put that thing on the back seat. She’ll see me for sure.
I had no idea how to stop her. I just figured she was better off with me than without me. That I was giving her the added responsibility of protecting a twelve-year-old girl as well as getting herself and Henry out of that cockpit did not occur to me.
She backed out of the drive with no lights. Aunt Bertie slept at the far back of the house. With luck she wouldn’t hear us leave.
Cousin Minn’s driving was erratic in full daylight after a good night’s sleep. At night with nothing but the moon to guide us away from the house, she was a positive horror. I prayed that there were no other cars on the road and Chief Cochran or his deputy wouldn’t spot us.
Finally, the glow told me that she’d turned the headlights on. She had also sped up and was taking corners like a race car driver. I braced myself fairly well until we went over some railroad tracks and became airborne for an instant before the car slammed down on the far side.
My shoulder hit the metal support for the front seat. I yelped.
Reunion at Mossy Creek Page 23