by Jay, Karla M
I hear the sound again. It’s a man, his hollering coming from farther down the path. Off to the left, away from the stream. Most of our neighbors and relatives from the mountain are at Mama’s sitting up, so who’s on this back trail? Chills run through me. He must be in a passel of trouble to be yelling six ways to Jesus. My heart’s pounding, and it’s with little hope I pull open my burlap poke and search inside, supposing Ruthy packed a knife to go with the food. She didn’t. My small notepad and pencil, dried butter beans, bread, cheese, and candy are no protection against whatever has this man bellowing.
I square Jacca on the path, once again pointing down river, and climb onto his back. He must feel my fear. He sniffs the air and pitches his ears forward. I lean over him and give him a quick hug as if to say, it’s fine. Three clicks from me and he’s up to a smooth gait. More than anything, I want to ride on past whoever or whatever is ahead, but not trying to help a fellow man is a lowdown sin.
Jacca’s hooves beat the sun-mottled path. The bushes scrape against me, but my split skirt and calf-high boots prevent scratches. My breath is coming fast, and I keep an eye out for what’s waiting on our left. Through the trees, I spy an open field. Two horses stand hitched to a peddler’s wagon. I pull Jacca to a stop and squint in the direction of the rig. It’s the same Mr. Coburn, who visited us no more than four days earlier. His voice now sounds like broken red glass. I hop off Jacca and lead him through a tree line to the field. A broad-winged hawk circles overhead and lets out the uncaring cry of a hunter.
On the far side of the wagon, Mr. Coburn sits on a wooden stool and hasn’t noticed my approach. His trouser legs are rolled up past his knees, and he’s slapping at his bare legs full of spots. Jacca whinnies and snorts and tries to pull away.
Mr. Coburn jumps to his feet.
I raise my hand to say it’s okay and lead Jacca to stand beside the two weary-looking horses. Pulling this loaded wagon all over the back hills is a job for animals bigger than these poor creatures.
Keeping my distance, I turn to the peddler. His white shirt is rumpled, and he’s dressed in a plaid vest and brown trousers. His bowler hat is on the wagon steps, and the sun bounces off his bald head, leaving only a half wreath of graying hair circling the back side.
He clears his throat.
“Young lady, I apologize for my cursing. I sat a spell over yonder”—he points to a grassy area—“and the chiggers got to me.”
Wet grassy fields are always home to the tiny red bugs, especially in the spring. The peddler told Poppy he was from the city, and right as rain, he just proved it. The man’s legs are splotched with dozens of red sores, each the size of a buffalo nickel. I motion to stop itching them by pretending to scratch my arm and then slicing both hands in the air away from me.
“Well, shit fire and save matches. You’re that mute girl from up the hilltop.”
I back up a few steps. We only met the man that one afternoon when he arrived at our homestead, his wares rattling and banging against themselves, as his merchant wagon climbed the washboard road. The horses looked plumb wore out even then.
He claimed to hail from Charleston, South Carolina, but said he recently began as a traveling salesman in northern Georgia which put him in our neck of the woods. Poppy was leery of him at first and didn’t lower his shotgun ’til he felt for sure Coburn wasn’t a revenuer looking for moonshine stills. The country’s new anti-alcohol rule was only eighteen months old, but raids take place on our mountain every month or so. The officers go away empty-handed, and not because we don’t have corn whiskey. Everyone in these hills does. They just aren’t practiced at looking in all the right places.
Mr. Coburn’s wagon held dazzling merchandise, and Billy Leo gathered around it all big-eyed and gawking. It was like having a Sears & Roebuck catalogue fling wonders from its pages onto our doorstep. There was gum and candy like Beeman’s, Black Jack, and Necco Wafers. Mr. Coburn apologized for not providing every newfangled candy offering, but it wasn’t like we would buy any if he did have it to sell. He also hawked suspenders, thumb tacks, and boxes of Old Dutch pot cleanser. Mama studied the claims on the box before putting it back saying, “No thank you, sir. My ashes and vinegar recipe is working finer than frog’s hair.”
When Poppy shook his head against all offers, he added, “Get some feed and water for your horses and come on in for supper.”
Once seated around our heavy wooden table, Poppy offered thanks for the food and safe guidance for the peddler. Mama served chicken and dumplings and mushroom soup followed with a special treat—boiled custard.
Mr. Coburn spent the night bedded in our barn, and Poppy kept his rifle inside the front door. The man seemed fine enough, but one never knew what foul wind might blow our way.
Before heading out early the next morning, he complimented Mama on her cooking.
“We grow or pick everything fresh. These woods will feed a family if you know where to look.”
Poppy didn’t wave as the man rattled his way down the hill.
Now here he is boiled up with bites, and Mama’s words run through my head again. Doing a good thing to help another is why God put us here.
So I have a solution for the man.
He calls, “Where you heading?” as I turn to the stream bank to find jewelweed. In a patch of sunlight, I spot the hairy green leaves and pluck a handful. Mama calls them miracle greens. The smashed leaves cut down pain and heal skin irritations.
I drop the leaves in his hands and mime that he should rub the leaves into a pulp and put it on his skin. I have no problem being neighborly, but I’m not about to touch those hairy, bug-bit legs.
He scrubs the green paste on the bites and seems to hold his breath, waiting for something to happen. A smile grows on his lips, and he sits up straight.
“You’re a choice bit of calico, aren’t you now?”
I shrug. Of course, Mama taught me a few healing tricks.
Mr. Coburn studies me for a moment then speaks. “I knew another girl back home who was simple in the head, and just as sweet, but the family didn’t treat her so well as yours. She burned to death in the little shed they locked her in whiles they were at church.”
I recoil. Locked in a shed? Because she can’t talk? Who does such a thing?
“Appears you’ve got skills.”
I point to my head and nod, then open my hands, pretending to hold a book. I have no way to explain I’ve read one hundred fifty-six books so far. The only thing slowing me down is the traveling librarians who have a hard time getting up into the hills in winter. Sometimes I fancy that one day I could do the librarian’s job. I’m comfortable on a horse, pulling a small wagon, and would know which books to recommend to all the holler folks.
Mr. Coburn’s face changes to serious. He must feel bad about calling me simple. I hold no grudge because he doesn’t appear to be a mean feller. I understand folks expect the world to always match their beliefs about what’s normal. They aren’t used to bumping into exceptions. And maybe in some cases, a person who can’t talk might be a bit slow in the head.
“I thank you for stopping and helping.” He tilts his head to keep me in sight as he lowers each pant leg. “Why are you so far from home?”
I pull out my notepad and write, going to find a preacher in Helen, and hand the pad to him.
He takes a long time to read those few words, so I assume he’s not good at ciphering. He nods. “That’s where I’m heading, into Helen and then beyond.” He squints one eye. “I owe you for your medicinal knowledge…um, and your horse is sure to spook out on the highway. Why not send him back up the mountain and I’ll take you the rest of the way?”
The man has put words to my biggest worry. Jacca and the highway. He’s as important to me as anyone in my family, and I can’t undertake the idea of anything bad happening to him. Jacca knows his way home, and with three short blasts from my
whistle, he’d head that way.
I study the peddler and his wagon. I don’t really know the man, and Poppy was wary of him at first. Is it immoral to be alone with a man if he’s only half a stranger? He’d eaten at our table.
He squints toward the sky. “If we get a move on, you will be home before the Lord lowers a blanket of stars over this day.”
My mind’s running in tight circles with indecision. The wagon seat looks wide enough for me to sit a proper distance from the man. And the town of Helen is no more than an hour away. Then I imagine worrying Poppy when Jacca returns without me.
Mr. Coburn is packing away his scattered belongings, preparing to leave. The idea that I’ll be home tonight at Mama’s side helps me make up my mind.
I take out my notepad again and write a note to Poppy. I slide it under Jacca’s saddle. It says I’ve caught a ride with Mr. Coburn and will be back before dark. I pat Jacca’s neck and pull his head lower and press my forehead against his. My way of telling him everything is all right. I lead him to the trail and point back the way we came. Three tweets from my whistle and he heads home at a comfortable trot. I feel a bit offended he didn’t glance back or hesitate, but it just means I’ve trained him well.
When he rounds a bend and disappears from sight, I turn back to Mr. Coburn’s wagon. He’s opened the back doors of his truck and is leaning inside. A selfish thought sneaks into my mind that maybe he’s choosing a drink for me before we head out. Never tried that Coca-Cola he has in there.
He turns, pointing a silver pistol my way, and then sweeps the gun toward the interior. “Get in. I’m keeping you for mine.”
His voice, now a dung-brown color, matches the ugliness on his face.
I fumble for the wooden whistle. One short tweet followed by two long ones and Jacca will come charging back. My breath hitches in my throat. I get the whistle to my lips and give it the first short chirp, all the while backing away from the man.
“Confound you!” He lunges and reaches me in five paces, rips the whistle from my hand, and throws it into the field.
I scratch and claw, trying to get away, but he punches me in the stomach, and I drop to the ground. I’ve never been hit before, so I’m momentarily stunned. Tears roll from my eyes, and inside I scream for Poppy. I want to be small again and climb onto his lap, to feel his hand rubbing my arm.
Fear takes ahold of my soul, freezing me in place with shouts echoing in my head. Get away! The world flickers and breaks in bitty snippets.
The man’s yellow teeth flash through his cruel smile and send chills through me.
A hawk circles overhead.
The wind’s fingers whisper across the tops of the spring grass.
I scramble to my feet, but he grabs my hair and pulls me backward to the wagon, cussing. “Kee-riste! You’re worse than a rabid polecat.”
At the open door, he pins me against the wood slats with one elbow to my neck and shifts the gun to the back of his pants. In one smooth move, he hefts me into the interior, leaving me crumpled between his loaded shelves of goods. I’m on my feet and lunge for the doors as he closes them. He reaches in and pushes me back, snagging my charm necklace.
The last thing I see before the doors shut are my precious buttons spinning away, silhouetted against the blue sky.
Briar Stewart
The next morning, Taggert struts around the camp, just shy of gnashing his teeth like a demon on a mission. The early heat is already so thick it’s worth wearing. The supervisor came to realize his request for two prostitutes from Cartersville ain’t been honored. Taggert pays a feller to ride young gals out to the camp three days before some of us trustees and a couple of strong Negroes head in for supplies. I can’t find words to talk to the abused gals on the way back, once Taggert has used them up. It’s a chore I hate. They’re usually young, godforsaken waifs, abandoned to the streets for a dozen different reasons. I don’t know what could’ve went wrong with them not showing, but Taggert’s been cracking his whip at the heels of the convicts all morning. He ain’t cut skin yet, but with the men stripped down to their waist, all the fellers are as twitchy as cats surrounded by a slew of mangy dogs.
The Negroes ain’t even singing their hymns and folk songs. Trustee Huxley often plays the banjo along with the convicts’ tunes, but he left the instrument at camp after Taggert threw him the stink eye. Even the forest seems to have built a wall against the supervisor’s wrath, preventing a cool breeze from blowing through the timber and leaving us fighting vexing clouds of gnats.
“Mind your potatoes!” he snaps at me when I suggest Clyde, the water boy, make an extra round before dinner break.
Clyde. He ain’t a boy at all. He’s a string bean of a man, with a red nose and orange-peel face. An old-timer who claims to have spent forty of his sixty years in and out of jail. And prohibition ain’t stopped him from drinking or making hooch. Once drunk, he goes forgetful and staggers to the closest town and gets nabbed once again for devilment.
A convict calls out for a break to retie his boot because it’s raising blisters.
Taggert crosses the space between the trees and faces off with the convict. “I ain’t worked you no harder than anybody else. Look around you, blackie. They all still working.”
“Yessir.”
I move closer, worried another worker gonna get himself killed. Taggert pokes the prisoner.
“You need your mammy here to keep your shoe tied, boy?”
“No sir.”
Taggert shakes his head. “Let me see what you crabbing about, John Henry.”
The convict pushes his right foot forward and steps out of the back of his boot. An inch of pink skin shines along the side of his heel. It’s bleeding round the edges.
“Piss on it,” Taggert says.
The convict raises his eyes, a dangerous move that often begs the bite of a whip. His face is frozen. His mouth gapes open. Confused.
“I said, get that cock out and piss on it!”
I step forward, my eyes latched to Taggert’s. “Sir. We’re wasting daylight on this.” Don’t know a man alive that can piss while filled to the brim with fear.
“It heals cuts and blisters.” Taggert pushes me away and takes out a pocket watch attached to a leather thong. He growls to the convict. “You have two minutes or I’m whipping you red.”
The convicts close by stop their cutting. The air in the woods tightens.
“Get back to work!” Taggert yells to the others. He turns to his victim. “Tick tick.”
The prisoner’s got his britches unbuttoned and holds his member. His hand shakes as he begins praying in a quiet childlike manner.
I hold my breath, as if’n I can stop the unfolding of those seconds. That’s the thing ’bout time though, ain’t it? It’s never all the same. Some hours or days go by and you don’t take no never mind of it. Then, the opposite can happen. A little minute stretches your senses until all you can do is notice the frightful passing of precious blinks of time.
The sound of splashing liquid takes hold and refocuses my vision. The convict sags in relief as he keeps soaking his foot and boot.
Taggert shakes his head. “That’s enough. Tie that shoe and get back to work.”
He walks away and I follow him.
“Ain’t never heard tell of piss being a cure,” I say.
“Because you’re a dumb mountain hick,” he sneers. “What would you do back home?”
“Apple cider vinegar, or if we hike to a sunny knob, find aloe vera leaves.”
“Ya don’t say.” He adjusts his hat on his head. “See any of that round here?”
“No sir, I don’t. That’s why I was asking about the piss.” I know I’m poking the bear. But he’s ignorant and always prideful of his lack of knowledge. He even challenged my story ’bout riding rails through Utah on the way to California, him saying Utah set up
next to Canada. And I’m the dumb one?
Taggert sighs and stares at the sky. Not a cloud showed up to help out today. He slaps his leather gloves against the back of the wagon and turns to me.
“Wasn’t there a farm about three miles back? Sits off the trail?”
“I recollect it. Might be a bit farther though.” What’s he want to know that for?
“You’re gonna fetch me some milk. Stomach’s full of fire ants today.”
This is the first time he’s trusted me to go off the mountain alone. If’n I keep riding, how long will a search party stay on the hunt for me? I picture the homestead of Stewart Mountain, my pa, ma, sisters, and brother. As a crow flies, it ain’t much more than seventy, eighty miles to the east. But tales tell of wardens hunting down family members, forcing them to take the place of the escaped criminal. The last guilt I need in this here world is bringing more sorrow to them.
He walks to his tent and returns with some limp dollar bills.
“Buttermilk would suit as well. And ask about blackstrap molasses and biscuits.” He crosses his arms. “Can’t take much more of what the cook is putting out.”
This is why men with more smarts don’t sign up as supervisors. They may get to let loose their cruel side on the job, but they eat convict fare along with the rest of us.
“Yessir.” I look over at the four horses and the mules. “Which one you want me on?”
“Take Bayou. You ’bout the only one can handle him.”
Bayou is a dark dapple gelding, five years old, although he acts like he’s only months from being unbridled and unbroken.
I nod and cross the short field and open the thrown-together pen. My pa and me didn’t agree on much, but one thing Poppy always said was when we ride a horse, we borrow the wind. That sure is the truth. I think of Willow and her horse, Jacca. They know each other so good. I don’t want to shadow Willow’s sun, but when I lived at home, I was plumb jealous of their abiding tie. Although I tried to hide my covetous heart, it was like trying to slip sunrise past a rooster. Willow always noticed and often let me take Jacca when we rode all over our mountains. A wash of sadness fills me. I push away the good thoughts of the nineteen years I had there. Before the accident. Before the anger. Now I’ll never go back.