Next I checked the hollow tree. It was empty but I figured it would be stuffed full of money tomorrow afternoon. Now it was time to go, but not the same way because I thought I had figured out a short cut. If I was right, I could check on the still every Saturday, count the boxes under the table, then when the time was right, make my move. I would wait till there were at least six boxes before I would return on one Sunday soon and rob that money tree.
I walked up the bank of the creek to the tree bridge Poudlum had showed me. The tree had fallen from the side of the creek I was on, and the big roots which had ripped out of the ground stood jagged and broken all around its base. I had climbed up on the trunk and taken two steps when I saw the boat. It was a wooden fishing boat, kind of like the ones my father built, about ten feet long, and it was lodged in the branches of the tree near the far side of the creek.
Halfway across there were branches to hold onto and to maneuver around. Just a few feet farther and I could look directly down into the boat where it was caught between two branches that descended into the water. The boat was empty except for an oar and a coil of rope tied to the bow. It was also dry, which meant it was a good boat that had probably gotten away from someone somewhere up the creek and floated down here before snagging in the branches of the fallen tree.
At first I thought about taking my stick and pushing it loose so I could watch it float on down the creek. Then I had another thought. It was a good boat, probably worth ten or fifteen dollars. Why not hide it and save it like I did empty drink bottles?
I stretched out on my belly on the trunk of the tree, stuck my stick under the rope, and lifted it up until I could grab it with my other hand. Then I got up and crossed on over to the other bank, letting the slack out of the rope as I went. Once I got to the other side I walked up the bank a few steps, tugged on the rope until the boat came out from between the two limbs, then pulled it over toward me. When it was right up next to the bank I used my stick again to push it under the brushy top of the fallen tree. Once I got it hidden I took the rope and tied it up tightly to another limb.
Satisfied that I had it well hidden, I crossed the narrow strip of land and splashed into the Mill Creek. When I got to the part of the creek where Poudlum and I had entered and exited, I kept going. It made sense to me that if I went farther, then turned left through the woods I should come out behind the sawmill.
I guessed how much time had passed to figure out when to exit the creek. I knew how long it took me to walk up Center Point Road from the road leading to Poudlum’s house to Miss Lena’s. When I thought that much time had passed, I turned into the woods, marking my spot by breaking a low limb off a big sweet gum tree.
After a while I heard a low mournful sound floating through the woods. I stopped, turned my ear toward the sound, and listened carefully. When I recognized it I knew I was real close to the sawmill. It was Jake singing the blues. I didn’t want to scare him by coming in behind him, so I circled around the edge of the woods and came in toward the sawmill from my normal route. He had stopped playing and singing, and was sitting on the makeshift bench opening a can of sardines with his pocket knife. A can of pork and beans, already opened, was on the bench next to him with the jagged tin lid bent backward. Next to the can was a dime box of saltine crackers.
As soon as I got close enough, without yelling, I called out, “Hey, Jake.”
“Mister Ted, come on over here. I just about to have myself a bite to eat. You cares to join me?”
I guessed it was about one o’clock, and I suddenly realized how hungry I was. “You sure you got enough?” I asked while I slid onto the opposite end of the bench.
“Got plenty. Even if I didn’t, I’d always share what I has wid you,” he said as he finished opening the flat can.
We ate the salty little fish right out of the can with our fingers, and we scooped the beans out of the other one with the crackers. It was a mighty tasty meal, especially since I was so hungry. When we finished, he walked over to the fire and threw the empty cans in.
“You burn those cans?”
“Yeah, it keeps the varmints away. I sees you still got yo’ stick.”
“Uh huh, I take it with me everywhere.”
He walked back over and while reaching underneath the bench said, “Well how ’bout if I trade dis one to you fo’ it?”
The stick he handed me was a beautiful piece of polished hickory, just the right length, with a hole drilled through the handle where a strip of leather had been threaded though and tied. The end was rounded off, then it tapered down toward the handle which was perfect for my hand. On further inspection, I found “Mister Ted” had been carved along the length of it. I handled it with awe. “Good Lord, Jake, this is a mighty fine stick. And it’s for me?”
“Got yo’ name on it, don’t it? Ain’t quite as heavy as yo’ old one, but wid its shape and balance I figures you could swing it quick enough to bust a bad dog upside his head real good.”
“Or bash a snake with it,” I said as I stood and took a practice swing.
“Dat too.”
“I could even hurt a person real bad with this stick.”
“If need be, I s’pose you could. You wants to let’s walk up to de store and gets us a cold drank?”
Jake got an RC Cola and I got a NuGrape, then we went outside and sat on the ground in the shade of the oak tree. I watched him drink half the bottle, then he said, “I seed Mister Creel’s big new car go by a while ago.”
“Which way was he going?”
“West, down toward his house.”
I was aching to tell Jake about the still and that I knew who was the bootlegger, but no, not quite yet, I thought. But I did want to figure out how much money was being stuffed into that hollow tree, so I asked Jake, “How much does a pint of whiskey cost?’
He looked at me with a frown and asked, “Why you be wanting to know something like dat?”
“I just wondered how much it costs my daddy when he buys a bottle.” Lying again, I thought.
“A pint of good liquor cost you three dollars.”
Now that I had a number to figure with, I wanted to change the subject, so I said, “I been picking cotton all week.”
“I knows. Heard you gots to be real good at it.”
“How you know that?”
“I walked down to the Robinsons’ and had supper wid ’em last night. Dey told me all about yo’ big week in de cotton patch. Yo’ brother, too.”
“Picking cotton is hard. I had enough to last me a while.”
“’Spect de Robinsons feel dat way, too. Dey gon’ finish yo’ uncle’s patch today, but den dey gots to finish dere own.”
“How long you think that’s gonna take ’em?”
“Dey say about two weeks. In fact dey gots to finish by den.”
“How come?”
“’Cause if dey don’t pay de taxes on dere property in three weeks, den dey is gonna lose it.”
“The house too?”
“Everything.”
“How much are the taxes?”
“Hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Hundred and fifty dollars! Where in the world are they gonna get that much money?”
“Cotton bringing seventy-five dollars a bale, and dey figures on having two bales. Dey got one already in dey cotton house. Looking like everything gon’ be okay.”
Suddenly Jake jumped to his feet, ran around to the front of the store, pointed west, and shouted, “Oh my Lawd, look over yonder!”
I leapt up, ran around to join him, looked toward where he was pointing and saw black smoke boiling up into the clear blue sky.
“Dat smoke look like it coming from de Robinson place. Come on, we needs to gets up to Mister Curvin’s cotton field fast!”
Jake was a lot faster than me. By the time I got up to the field Jake and the Robinsons�
�� were all on the back of Uncle Curvin’s truck, and he was pulling it onto Center Point Road.
I jumped up on the running board on the passenger side, stuffed my stick and Grit bag through the open window, then dived through it into the cab with Uncle Curvin. He never said a word, just kept working the clutch and the gears until he had his old truck going as fast as it would go. We passed Miss Lena’s store trailing a big red cloud of dust.
We slid sideways on the loose ground when Uncle Curvin turned off the main road. Then he topped the hill and the house and fields came into view and we saw that the cotton house was already burned to the ground with nothing left but a smoldering pile of ruined cotton. Even worse, the fire was roaring across the field heading straight toward the house with the wind behind it. I heard a chorus of moans from the back of the truck.
Uncle Curvin gunned the old truck and skidded to a stop in front of the house. He didn’t waste any time. Got right out of his truck and started yelling orders. “All you young ’uns run as fast as you can to the woods and break the tops out of some small pine trees. Get two each and meet the rest of us in the middle of the field.”
Poudlum, his brothers and sisters, and I all stood motionless for a moment, frozen in fear, until he harshly yelled, “Get your tails moving, now!”
We took off, running like deer. When we returned to the field with the pine tops I saw what my uncle had in mind. He, Jake, and Mr. and Mrs. Robinson had positioned themselves halfway between the fire line and the house, where they were racing down four rows of cotton pulling the plants out of the ground and throwing them in the direction of the advancing fire. They were making a fire break.
When we came running up behind them, Uncle Curvin turned and yelled, “Y’all spread out across the field, take them pine tops, and beat out any fire that crosses that line. As soon as we got to the end we’ll come back and help y’all.”
For the next two hours we raced around beating out small fires, helping each other when it became too much for one, choking and coughing, until finally nobody could find a spark anywhere.
Two of Poudlum’s older brothers were dispatched to the tree line behind the burned-out cotton house to make sure the fire didn’t spread into the woods.
By the time they returned to report their success, someone had drawn two buckets of fresh water from the well. Everyone sat or leaned on the edge of the porch while we passed the water around, silently celebrating our success, and at the same time looking glumly at the devastation. I wanted to stay and grieve with them, but Uncle Curvin made me get in the truck with him. I looked through the back glass as we were pulling away. Mrs. Robinson was sitting on the front porch steps with her face in her hands.
When we reached Center Point Road, I thought about Mrs. Annie Pearl and the others waiting on their Grit paper, but I just didn’t have the heart or the strength to carry on. So when Uncle Curvin asked, “What you wanna do?” I told him I just wanted to go home.
“Okay, little buddy, I’ll take you.”
We passed Old Man Cliff Creel’s house and I saw him sitting in his front porch swing, sipping on what looked like a glass of iced tea. I’m going to get you, old man, I thought.
When we turned into the road to my house, Uncle Curvin reached over, tousled my hair, and said, “We did all we could, and you did real good.”
I knew what the Robinsons were facing and who had caused it, and thought, no, I haven’t done all I can do, not yet.
13
The Cotton Gin
My mother sent me straight to the wash tub when I got home. I hadn’t realized that I was covered with soot from head to toe. Then after I had washed and changed she noticed that my hair was singed, so she sat me in a chair on the front porch where she proceeded to work on me with her clippers. She gave the haircuts at our house, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Occasionally her clippers would pinch and they always left my neck feeling chafed. While I was suffering I listened to Uncle Curvin tell her about the fire. “It was touch and go for a while there, especially with the wind blowing, but we finally beat it out. If we had got there five minutes later, then the house would of been gone. At least we saved that.”
“How about the cotton, did it all burn?”
“A good portion of it, but I ’spect they might have close to a bale left in the field to pick.”
“Them poor folks. Curvin, you think somebody set that fire?”
“I don’t know about nothing like that.”
I did. I figured it was Old Man Creel, and that he had done it so the Robinsons couldn’t sell their cotton and pay their property tax, but I didn’t say a word.
I forgot about the pain of having my neck scraped when I heard Uncle Curvin say to my mother, “I’ll be taking a load of cotton to the gin come Monday morning. You think it’ll be all right if Ted rides along?”
“It’s all right, if he wants to go.”
“Yes, ma’am, I want to go. Uncle Curvin, can I ride on the back of the truck on top of the cotton?”
“Course you can.”
“What time will we be leaving?”
“I’ll be at the cotton house, loading up, about seven o’clock Monday morning. You be there.”
I suffered through church services again the next morning, not listening to anything that preacher had to say. Fred had invented a new game. Just before we went inside he gave me an empty match box and three marbles, then he explained the rules. I could put any number of marbles into the box and put it on the pew between us, and he would signal with his fingers his guess of how many were inside. As long as he didn’t guess the number, I got to keep the box, but once he did, it passed to him, then I would have to guess.
I was amazed at his ingenuity and decided he hated being in church as much as I did. Anyway, his game passed the time away and then we were outside watching everybody stand around in the churchyard talking.
I saw Old Man Creel moving around through the crowd, shaking hands, smiling his evil smile, and I just knew he was spreading his foul message. A little later I saw him drive the big station wagon out of the churchyard, and I wondered if anyone else had any notion where he was going. I knew that after he had dinner he was going to pick up a load of illegal whiskey, and I meant to find out what he did with it.
As usual, we all went on down to Uncle Curtis’s house for Sunday dinner. He always had ice at his house. Twice a week the ice truck delivered a giant block. I had been there before and watched them deliver it. The truck had a covered body on the back, and inside were great blocks of ice covered with quilts to insulate and keep the ice from melting. The ice man would take a big pair of black tongs with pointed ends and handles on the top, snatch up the block, bring it inside, and deposit it into the ice box.
I also knew there would be fried chicken. Along with it we had fresh black-eyed peas with tender snaps, creamed potatoes, and roasted ears of corn. But there was a special treat today. Besides iced tea, there was a choice of orange or lime Kool-Aid. I looked at the pitchers and thought that the colors were as pretty to look at as it was sweet and tangy-tasting on my tongue.
After Sunday dinner was over, the grown-ups congregated on the back porch in rocking chairs and began shelling peas.
My cousin Robert announced that he was going to drive to Coffeeville, so I told my mother I was going to ride with him as far as Miss Lena’s and go on home. But after he dropped me off I kept on walking west hugging the edge of the woods. I entered the woods at the same spot as last Saturday, eight days ago. I didn’t plan on getting close enough for that bulldog to catch my scent today, because I didn’t need to hear, I just wanted to see. I picked out a big loblolly pine tree with low limbs, easy for climbing, but bushy and rising above the surrounding ones.
I felt naked because my mother hadn’t let me take my stick to church, so I searched around the ground until I found a substitute, then I began climbing.
&n
bsp; Halfway up the tree I found a comfortable spot where I could wedge myself in between two fat limbs and lean back against the trunk. From there I had a clear view of the house, the yard, and all the outbuildings which belonged to Old Man Creel.
I guessed by the position of the sun that it was between two and three o’clock, about the time he ought to be picking up his whiskey. I knew I might be waiting for nothing, but I was just going to wait and see what happened.
To pass the time, I began to study the details of the property. Several cows were grazing in the pasture behind the barn. They were all red except one, which was white with black spots and had a cow bell around her neck that clinked as she moved about. I made a mental note to ask Poudlum what color their milk cow was, but I figured it was the black and white one.
A sudden motion got my attention back toward the house. An unfortunate chicken had wandered into the back yard and that mean dog had it in his massive jaws, shaking and crushing the life out of it. Once there was no life left in the bird, he settled down on the ground and began ripping it apart.
The dog munched on his Sunday chicken for a while, then his head jerked and his ears stood straight up. I watched as he rose to his feet and started trotting around the house toward the front. Looking that way, I saw what he had heard. It was his master in his station wagon.
I suspected success when I saw the car backing into the carport rather than pulling in. Old Man Creel got out, came through the gate, patted his dog on its head, and started walking toward the smokehouse. He took a key and unlocked the padlock on the door, returned to the car, unlocked the trunk, and extracted one of the boxes. One of the very boxes I had seen under the table at the whiskey still yesterday. I watched as he transferred all six boxes from his car trunk to his smokehouse. Instead of keeping smoked meat, he apparently kept illegal whiskey.
Only after he had disappeared through the back door did I descend from my lookout spot.
A Yellow Watermelon Page 10