No-Bob is not but six miles long and three miles wide, but who's to say really where it starts and stops?
I need to get far away from No-Bob. I set out for my very own forty days and forty nights.
I walk and walk and walk some more, and when night comes, I set up camp along Leaf River. It has warmed up some, and my coat is hot and heavy. I take it off, then my shoes and all the rest. I think to use the white sand along the shore to scrub my body clean. Then I plop myself all the way into the river and bathe myself. I've walked so far and I am so dirty, the icy water feels good and clean. I think about Little Bit then, how she said she was baptized and her ma was baptized in, where was it, Magnolia? I look around at all the trees and name the ones I know. Papaw, black tupelo, sweet gum, sassafras. I wish I had some other words to say, because this here bathing is not like any other. Maybe it is the cold water. Maybe it is this here river and the black, wet, sweet-smelling land all around me. Or maybe it is because I have run away.
Lord, I say. I am very much alone right now. Would you mind please holding my hand?
It is quiet, like church before the O'Donnells come in, prop their guns up in the corner against the back wall, then praise and sing. The moon is high in the sky, full and bright, and if it could make a sound, it would sound like moths in a lantern trying to get out.
I bundle up in my coat and quilt and make a bed of dried leaves so that I am not sleeping on the cold ground. As it gets darker, I hear panthers screaming way off in the forest and the wildcats howling and now I miss miss miss Momma and Pappy and I think, How did I ever get into this pickle?
This land? This land is just barely tame, and I think, What am I doing in it? You can't ever tame it. You can't grab a hold of this land. It grabs a hold of you. I tell myself I know these woods as good as any, but even I have to admit I picked the wrong time of year to leave shelter. I think to stay here only as long as it takes for me to think up another plan.
The trees look like they're cut out from black paper against the sky, and the sound of wind rustling through cane is like no other. It's not a happy sound, not like the rustle of a woman's petticoat, nor is it lonely like the swoosh going through the tops of longleaf pines. It's mournful-like. Wishful, like maybe someone's out there calling for you, and you know it's the wrong thing to do to get up and go toward that sound, but still, you want to.
I look up and wonder if the stars will fall tonight, the way they did back when Pappy was a young man. He said that the night he saw stars fall, they didn't fall on anyone and they didn't hurt nobody, but nobody knew where they went. Maybe they fall through the cracks in the ground. Maybe they land in the streams and ponds where the water puts them out.
When Momma shut me up in the chifforobe and I rubbed my eyes with my knees, I saw pictures behind my eyelids and counted the stars inside my mind. Now I can see them with my eyes wide open, right in front of me up there in the sky. And even though I don't know everything there is to know about stars, and I don't know what will or will not hurt me, I am not so scared anymore because I am glad I am out of the chifforobe.
I fall asleep thinking on those falling stars.
***
The next day I walk on, deeper into the forest, across Leaf River. I pick up a good stick and make a notch in it for the day I've been gone.
I stand before the hackberry tree on Fisher Creek. This is the tree that is supposed to have water dripping from its branches and leaves. Momma told me the legend of an Indian maiden named Onumbee, or "Gentle South Wind."
Onumbee's lover was sent forth into war. Every day Onumbee went to a place to wait for the return of her love, watching for him day after day, hoping he would make his way back. The lover never returned, and, supposing he was killed, she began pining away. She finally died of a broken heart and was buried at the place where she waited and watched. All that remains is a hackberry tree, which is said to have water continually dripping from its branches and leaves. The drops of water are the tears shed by Onumbee, still crying because her soul still waits at the lookout for her lover.
I think now that Momma got her missing ideas from the story of Onumbee.
Or is this the hackberry tree where Mr. Sanders tied his pregnant slave woman and whipped her until she died, and everybody knew that when you went around that tree, you could hear that baby cry?
I am tired, but I will not sit under that hackberry tree to rest. All around me the place is hard and gray, stained with yellow-brown, and it is cold and lonely and the wind moves through the trees, moaning and moaning, groaning and whistling.
I stare down at the river. I think of that slave that Mr. Russell once owned. Buck was his name. Little Bit told me a little bit about him. Mr. Frank and his pa walked him to the river Strong and Mr. Russell gave him a pair of eyeglasses and his freedom papers. Then Buck crossed the river all by himself, even though he was scared of water. He did it. He crossed over.
I touch the asafetida bag around my neck and move on, turning my pockets inside out to stop death. I head west toward Oakohay Creek, where I head north toward Cohay swamp. The woods is quiet and mournful. I stay away from canebrakes because of the wildcats.
By Hatchapaloo Creek I stumble on a bone so sharp, it cuts my leg. The bone is a leg bone. A big man's bone and it lies on top of more bones, all of them leg bones or arm bones. I recognize a torn piece of Confederate uniform, and then another piece from a Federal uniform. I look all around me and see that I'm standing in a shallow grave full of bones from severed limbs, bones of our men on both sides, pappies, sons, grandpappies, brothers, and husbands. Not North or South bones, nor black, red, or white bones. Not even bones from a good family or a bad family. Just bones. Cut-off, sawed-off limbs turned into cut-off, sawed-off bones. All of them the same color now.
The bones do not scare me. I have cut up too many chickens and seen one too many hog killings to be afraid of a few leg bones. I'm sorry, I say to the bones. I'm sorry you are separated from your masters. I'm sorry I am stepping over you.
And I move on.
I find a cave guarded by trees, some of them maple, magnolia, some birch, some I don't know the names of. I don't find any bear or human being inside the cave. I heard tell about a Negro man who escaped his plantation and hid out in a cave all during the war. Last I heard, though, he was still there, telling people it was not time to come out yet. His people weren't hardly free.
Right in front of the cave, on the black dirt along the river, I crouch down and soak my cut leg in the water. While I'm down there, I catch a fish with a stick, and I eat that fish whole, cooked at a fire I build. For dessert, there are dried huckleberries and chestnuts. I sit by the water, sucking on a cold, ripe, smushy persimmon, thinking nobody has to cook this into anything to make it good.
Away from the water, I collect spider webs to put over my cut and I wrap it with mud and sit awhile until it dries.
On this night, I sleep so well and warm inside the cave, I could be a bear and sleep there through the winter. I dream that I get up in this cave, and there next to me is a tiny man with twigs and leaves in his long hair. He says he has a gift for me and I am to choose one. He holds out a knife, some bright, black berries, and some roots. I already have a pocketknife. The berries I know are poison nightshade, and the root is from a sassafras tree. I choose the root because I like sassafras tea and I know how to make it.
When I wake up, I am so sure that the little man is there in the cave with me, I look all over for him. My fire is burned out, but the coals are still bright embers, and the air smells of vanilla. In my hand, I'm holding a chunk of sassafras root.
Outside the cave, all I see are acres and acres of these longleaf pines run through with rivers. I get water and set to making sassafras tea by the fire, and I decide to make camp here in this cave for as long as I need to.
***
I count the notches in the stick I carry in my coat pocket. Nine. Nine days of eating the fish I catch and the nuts I find, the berries and persimmons,
sharpening my knife with the stone I keep in my pocket, and sleeping in the cave where I dream almost every night of the little man, and each night, he offers me the gifts. Sometimes the little man offers me a gun instead of a knife. Or he offers me poison oak or jimsonweed, but every night I pick the root or the herbs, knowing in my dream mind that I can use them to make something to help me or somebody else.
During the day, I explore the riverbanks and learn the rivers, remembering the names and what all I seen on the map in Mr. Frank's schoolhouse. Oakohay Creek flows from its source on the Smith-Scott county line and empties into Leaf. Big and Little Hatchapaloo run into Oakohay. The Leaf and Chickasawhay form the Pascagoula River that empties into Pascagoula Bay. The Pearl River, with its tributaries the Strong and the Bogue Chitto, empties into the Gulf of Mexico. All of these waters are streams or tributaries and they are never stagnant and they don't dry up. Now I know why Mr. Frank says if a river forgets its source, it dries up.
What happens to a person who leaves her family, her source? When I lived with Mr. Frank and Miss Irene, I didn't dry up and die.
Every now and then, I go back to the land of the bones by Hatchapaloo Creek and say some words. I'm so sorry, I say. I'm real sorry.
I miss people and I don't. I miss eating with people. I miss the smell of Momma and even Pappy, but not Smasher. I miss hearing Mr. Frank's steady voice and sitting next to him on his praying log. I miss his questions and everyday concerns. I miss the kind softness of Miss Irene, and the sound of her voice and her lady-laugh. I miss them both asking, "How are you today, Addy?" every morning, like they really wanted to know, and always waiting for my answer. And I wish more than anything I could just play here in the cave and in the water with Little Bit and Jess Still.
I can barely remember what Momma looks like. What was her first name again? What would she say to me being alone in the woods for so long? What would she have me do?
At night I feel Momma asking after me. Addy? What have you gotten yourself into now? Off a ways, I hear the water from the Hatchapaloo falling and joining up with the Oakohay.
I think on all the pioneers and outlaws that come before me, most all men, who lived in the wilderness, surviving by sleeping in caves or a hollow tree or even, if need be, inside the carcass of a bear to stay warm.
One night I hear people coming on horseback, and I know from the sounds of their voices that it's Mr. Smith and his men who have traveled some distance to get all the way out here. For what, I do not know.
I stamp out my fire, leave my cave, and, crouching under the canebrake, I watch.
A whole army passes, all of them with hoods and cut-out scare-faces on, heading toward Hatchapaloo Creek. It is like the war is starting all over again, and this here is a ghost army. More military-like than the real military, because during the war, most our soldiers didn't even have uniforms or horses. They were just ragtag units out to defend what they thought was theirs when all along this land belonged to nobody, North or South. This land, it is of itself.
I even think that I hear the sound of Pappy's voice. Then I hear the fearful, sad cries of someone they have, someone they are hurting.
I run and follow, trying to stay close behind, using the canebrakes as cover and shortcuts that only I know. I know this land now and I know how to hide. I know how to disappear behind trees. I know how to disappear inside trees. Already I feel myself to be half ghost, slinking around these woods over rotted logs with the slow-moving snakes and field mice.
I hear the men shout and talk of their plans to kill the man they have. I try and see what I can. The man is a black man.
They all stop talking and I think they have heard me, but instead a screech owl calls. They take trigger notice. Everybody knows a screech owl's call means death is somewhere near. The black man is the only one to turn and see me. Our eyes catch. The man is Sunny Rise, Jess Still's pa. And I think, How can this be? They killed Jess Still and now his pa, Sunny Rise?
I put my finger to my lips. Sunny Rise nods.
"It's witchy out here tonight," someone says. It's Smasher, and I can tell from the sound of his voice that he is not trying to scare. He is scared.
I feel something warm and furry near my foot. It is a skunk—I must not smell human to it. I must smell animal. Quietly and very very slowly, I climb the tree next to me, and the skunk waddles away. I am right above all the men. I shake down some tree ice.
"Cold ice is falling from the sky, Mark," someone says.
I hear, "Who that be?" and "It's somebody." I hear, "Who that there?" and "This here me." I hear, "Could you mind?"
I call like a screech owl.
Sunny Rise takes notice and slowly backs away from the men who have gotten down from their horses to look around. They take a few steps further and one of the men screams like a little girl. He holds up one of the old soldier leg bones, for they stand right smack in the land of the bones. They all of them scream and take off their hoods and I lean down from my tree branch to get a closer look at their faces. The moon is low and dim tonight, but when the clouds pass I see the bright red hair of Rew Smith. He has taken off his little, white costume hood and he is standing there, wailing like a little girl.
I hear Mr. Smith yelling at Rew to quit whining. "They're just bones."
"They're prob'ly just Indian bones," I hear Pappy say. He is without his hood because I have his hood.
I can see that Sunny Rise has gotten away. He has run away, but the men still have not taken notice because they are too fearful for themselves.
I see the white tail of the skunk again, coming back now with a whole family of skunks. I shake more tree ice and it falls on the skunk family. All that ice and the men yelling get the skunks good and mad, and with the smell comes more yelling, and finally the clouds pass again and I can see Pappy hitting Smasher on the top of the head with a thigh bone, shouting, "He got away," and Smasher is shouting," We got to get out of here, now!" And Rew Smith is still standing there front and center, wailing wailing wailing.
I do not laugh because I cannot. I think of Sunny Rise, worried now, because he has seen the face of at least one of his murderers and they know this.
The next morning I wake up in my cave, hearing the sound of women's voices. Three Choctaw women are at the creek in front of my cave, making cane baskets by shaving oak and hickory branches and soaking them under water.
They are a mighty pretty sight in their frocks of brightly colored calico, their hair in long braids, tied up with ropes and ribbons. The clouds feather across the sky like so many chicken wings. I cut notch number thirty in my stick and recall last night, wondering if it was a dream. It is not long before the women are all singing Choctaw songs. How can this beautiful world contain such ugliness as I have seen?
People. They are like lightning sometimes. Unexpected, beautiful, and scary—mostly you can't run away from either one.
I wish I could raise enough pep to sing along with the women, but I am so tired and I have a powerful hunger.
I used to be glad it didn't matter what I wore or what I looked like because nobody but the animals saw me. But watching the women, seeing what they're wearing and how they're working together, makes me remember how it was to be in the kitchen or outside stirring a pot with Momma and other women, and remembering Momma sets me to wishing I was amongst women.
Why did my momma leave me behind? I could have kept up. I could have helped out. When I find her, I will ask her. Maybe I will be mad for a good long while, but then maybe she and I will set ourselves to working like these Choctaw women before me. We will work alongside each other again. We will stir a pot of soup or wash out some clothes and all the angry thoughts about Momma will finally leave me alone.
The Choctaw women sing what they are singing and say what they are saying and I can't understand a word of it, but it is good to hear their woman talk, their voices rising and falling, first talking all at once, then slowing. Hearing them is like listening to music.
And I
can't help it. I forget myself and I start to hum to their talking. One of the women looks up.
It is Zula. She is not pregnant anymore. She carries a baby now in a sack hanging down in front of her. When she sees me she holds up her hand.
Chapter 10
Zula and the other two Choctaw women take me to their camp a ways up the river where I have not gone. We do not talk as we walk, which is fine by me. I am not their captive, though I suppose I could feel like one because I have no choice but to follow.
Their camp is nicer than my cave. They have small, neat one-room cabins like settled folk, built along the banks of the river. There are small patches of tilled land ready to be planted with corn or potatoes, and a few flocks of chickens.
When that man Mr. Tempy sees me, he throws his hands up over his little red head and shouts, "I knew you would come for a visit!"
Even though he is white, Mr. Tempy is dressed like the other Choctaw men. He is wearing moccasins and buckskin, silver armbands and wristbands. There are other white men here like Mr. Tempy.
Most of the women are wearing red skirts and calico shirts. They wear their hair parted in the middle and braided behind. When she sees me staring at the bright red part in her hair, Zula lowers her head to let me touch it as she explains that she and the other women trace a line of vermilion in their parts to represent the path of the sun.
Mr. Tempy says it is a good night for me to visit because tomorrow is a ball game. He tells me that before ball games men and women gather around sacred fires.
I am not used to all this talking. I stare at their mouths as they tell me things. I am glad they are not asking questions because I wonder what language I would speak if I spoke and if it would come out as animal or human. I hope that I can recall all that good English Mr. Frank taught me.
When I Crossed No-Bob Page 9