by Lisa Belmont
Of course, the peach tree – the one that was planted in Miss Priscilla’s honor – was looking mighty shady. I sat on the limestone bench beneath it and got to admiring the carved legs. The bench was crumbling in places, but that wasn’t what was bothering me. There were some curious words etched in the limestone. Alis volat propriis. I’d never learned any foreign languages, and had no idea what it meant, but I figured it had something to do with Miss Priscilla.
I started to cool down sitting under that peach tree. Its leaves were mighty green, and it was loaded down with all them sweet-looking peaches. They were a goldeny-pink color, clusters of them hanging off the branches, and I realized they were just gonna fall to the ground for the birds to eat.
I could hear Pa calling it a sin, saying only someone as rich as Widow Jones would let all that good fruit go to waste. There was one peach in particular – real round and juicy looking – that I could honestly say was about the prettiest peach I’d ever laid eyes on.
I told myself I oughta bring that peach to Big Jim, so he’d know I was real sorry for what Pa did, but I heard Momma and Widow Jones coming out the front door and chickened out.
Momma brought me a glass of water, and Widow Jones sat beside me on the bench. We all got to admiring the way the peaches hung from Miss Priscilla’s tree, and I couldn’t help but ask the obvious.
“You sure nobody ever ate one of them peaches?”
Widow Jones turned her gaze to me. “No, Chloe. Not a soul.”
“But they look good. Real ripe and juicy.”
“They may look good, honey, but they’re bitter. Almost no one’s able to eat from a tree that bitter.”
I didn’t say anything. I just thought of all the peaches falling to the ground and getting bruised while no one at Whitehall did a thing about it.
Momma got to waving one of her dainty lace fans and complaining about the heat. You could tell it was time to go inside.
She took the basket of plums and headed up to the house.
“Widow Jones,” I said, looking down at the bench. “What do them fancy words mean?”
Widow Jones looked down at the words, her expression softening. I wondered if she was thinking of all the things that had happened at Whitehall. How there was so much history that surrounded it.
“Funny,” she said. “You’re the first person to ask.”
“I am?”
“Yes,” she said. “I never realized it before, but you’re like her, Chloe.”
I looked up at the peach tree and wondered if that was true.
“Who else reads Faulkner at your age?”
The cicadas, high up in the trees, started to chirp like there’s no tomorrow.
“But it’s not easy doing things your own way. Sometimes you pay a price for it. A great price,” Widow Jones said, looking at me with an intensity that liked to scare me good. “But you’re like her, Chloe, and you’ve got to fly with your own wings.”
That’s what they said, I realized. Those little words on the bench.
She flies with her own wings.
The sun trickled through the trees and the bees lazily hummed in the cotton grass. I walked to the tree fort, wondering if Big Jim would show up. After all, Caleb had shot at him and Pa had whipped the tar out of him. I imagined him at the river shack, lying on his stomach as Hattie Mae steeped chamomile leaves and applied them to his cuts. Or maybe she was putting a compress of St. John’s wort on his back and bandaging it in a muslin wrap. Momma always said a little witch hazel and St. John’s wort could cure just about anything. Either way, I hoped Big Jim would forgive me.
I walked through the tall grass and Rufus got to wagging his tail like there’s no tomorrow. Birds got to chirping in the cypress trees, and Rufus started howling like he was a part of the chorus. Ol’ Rufus always did forget he was a bloodhound.
I looked up and saw the fort, way up high in the tree, but something stopped me dead in my tracks. Pa wasn’t anywhere in sight, but somehow the thought of him startled me. Last night I’d had a dream that Pa was dressed in a waistcoat and breeches with shiny silver-buckle shoes. There was a crowd of white men hollering out prices as Pa auctioned off one slave after another. There were strong Negro men wearing loose fitting clothes and women in long skirts with their hair up in headwraps. Pa told one young Negro woman to open her mouth and show everyone her beautiful teeth. The young woman refused and Pa got out his whip, striking her over and over again to the screams of the crowd. The woman was splayed across the floor, and looked up at Pa. I’d never seen anything like it – nothing so terrifying – because it was my face on the Negro woman.
It gave me an uneasy feeling as I looked up at the trunk of the swamp chestnut, the branches twisting this way and that like they couldn’t make up their minds. I got right under the tree and whistled. The rope ladder came tumbling down, and I took a deep breath before climbing up.
I didn’t know what to say to Big Jim. There weren’t words that could express how I felt, and yet, I thought he deserved some kind of explanation.
When I got to the top, Big Jim had his legs crossed and his head lolled to the side. He looked mighty tired. The kind of tired that makes your eyes want to droop from looking and your body want to cease from living.
I wanted to say, It was awful what Pa did, but I didn’t. I just took out one of the plums I’d picked at Widow Jones’ and handed it to him.
“I’m sorry it ain’t a peach,” I said. “I know how you like them peaches, but Widow Jones won’t let no one touch that tree.”
“Yessum.”
“But if anyone deserves a peach from that tree, it’s you. You’re kind of like Moses, Big Jim.”
He just looked at me, a real sadness in his eyes. “And you’re like Miss Priscilla.”
I didn’t want to think about the way things ended for them. Or that, in some way, me and Big Jim might be headed down the same path.
I took a couple books out of my satchel, the easy readers from Widow Jones’, and handed them to Big Jim.
“Is your back healed yet?”
He looked at me, sleepy-eyed, and said, “No, Miss Chloe. Not yet.”
“Big Jim,” I said, wedging myself against the corner of the fort so I could look out the window. “You gotta understand Pa. He don’t mean nothing by it, it’s just the way he was brought up. He and Joss think the South belongs to white folks.”
“Yessum.”
“Pa’s granddaddy, Briscoe Mason the Third, fought in The War Between the States. It’s something Pa’s real proud of.”
“Yessum.”
“And Pa likes to think the South should be like it was back then.”
He winced a little and repositioned himself. I hadn’t noticed the cut along his wrist. It’d dried up something awful. I took my eyes off it and focused on a wren hopping along a branch. It stopped to sing for a moment before flying away.
“And that’s why he does things like that. Like taking that whip and…” I looked at Big Jim as he nodded off to sleep.
“Yessum,” he said, laying his head against the wall.
I realized there was nothing I could say that would make up for what Pa did. Nothing that could right the wrongs of the past. It was a horrible place to be, just sitting there feeling like I couldn’t do anything.
What if Pa and Joss had actually killed him? I didn’t know if they’d have been convicted. The all-white jury over in Greenville sure let off that mob that killed Willie Earle. If I really thought about it, folks got away with murder in these parts.
It got me to thinking that maybe I could help Big Jim get out of Mills Hollow. Miss Lilly was always saying there were opportunities for Negroes up North. Big Jim could do his carpentry work and, once he learned to read, there wouldn’t be any way he’d get cheated.
I watched him blow puffs of air from his mouth like he was trying to toot on a horn. He looked downright peaceful, and I hoped he was dreaming about something good. Maybe Hattie Mae’s biscuits.
; I wouldn’t tell him just yet, I decided. I’d wait until I could figure out a way to get him safely out of Mills Hollow.
I got to flipping through the pages of the Dick and Jane books, just listening to him saw logs. I wondered if he was sleeping at night or if he had nightmares like I did. A stream of drool drizzled down his chin, and I slammed the book closed. He woke up, yawning real loud.
“Miss Chloe.”
“What?” I said, poking my head out the window.
“I got to thinkin’ on it and figured it’s worth it.”
I didn’t see anyone and pulled my head back in the window.
“What’s worth it?”
“Whatever I got to do to learn to read. It’s worth it.”
That liked to slay me. I’d never felt so torn up. I wanted to hug him like I used to do with Caleb when he’d come home with a pair of squirrels flung over his back.
Big Jim wiped his chin and I handed him the Dick and Jane book.
“Big Jim,” I said. “You got any other relatives besides your momma?”
“Yessum,” he said. “Momma’s sister, Jamella, married a white man who lives in Vermont. They done moved up there a few years ago.”
“Your aunt married a white man?”
“Yessum,” Big Jim said. “White as snow.”
“Huh,” I said, sitting back against the wall.
I’d never heard of such a thing before. I didn’t know a white person could marry a Negro. Pa liked to say that hell would freeze over before colored kids would go to school with white children. It seemed like hell would have to go through a near Ice Age before white folks would get to marrying black folk in South Carolina.
“And folk up there say that’s okay? A white man marrying a black woman?”
“Shor’nuf,” he said. “No one seems to pay them no mind.”
“Ain’t that something?”
“It’s something all right.”
“You been there? To Vermont?”
“Yessum. I went when I was little. Momma and I took the train. Ain’t been back since.”
“Would you want to go back?”
“Yessum. Vermont was real nice. Uncle Burr and Aunt Jamella done treated me real good.”
“I bet it’s real different from South Carolina.”
“Yessum, from what I remember it was. We went in winter and there was lots of snow. It liked to come up to your knees and Uncle Burr had to shovel it off the front walk. We got to making a snowman, too. Came out real good. We stuck a couple twigs in its sides and done gave it two button eyes.”
“Two button eyes?” I said, watching him light up.
“Yessum,” he said. “Aunt Jamella wrapped her scarf around its neck and Uncle Burr done put his hunting cap on its head.”
“Imagine that,” I said, trying to conjure the picture. “You and a white man, Big Jim. Making a snowman.”
“Yessum,” he said. “And that ain’t all. Uncle Burr’s a sugar maker. We tapped them trees real good and put out buckets that liked to fill to the brim with all that good maple sap.”
“Your Uncle Burr makes syrup from all that sap?”
“Yessum, he’s got himself a farm and what he calls a sugar shack.”
“A sugar shack?”
“Yessum, that’s where he turns that sap to maple syrup. He boils that sap down real good.”
Big Jim had a wistful look in his eyes. He must’ve had nothing but fond memories of Uncle Burr. Made me feel doubly bad about Pa.
“Your momma ever talk about going up North?”
“No, ma’am.”
I didn’t take my eyes off Big Jim. I just watched him as the leaves got to rustling real good. I wanted him to have a better life than Mills Hollow. Better than the way Pa treated him, and Joss. Better than the way Uncle Hickory and Caleb talked about him behind his back. Wasn’t any way for anyone to live. In some ways, I think I was jealous. Jealous that he could escape.
Even though we lived on either side of the swamp, it might as well have been on two different continents. Big Jim knew about as much as what went on in my house with Caleb and Pa as I did with him and Hattie Mae. And yet, our meetings at the tree fort were downright spiritual. Our own little Garden of Eden. Big Jim would get to singing them Negro spirituals, all the ones Puddingtate had taught him, and we’d have our own version of church.
In the tree fort, we’d forget that there had been slaves or lynchings. We could pretend no white woman had ever been raped by a black man and that no black man had ever been beaten by a white man.
I wanted to keep it that way. I wanted our little tree fort to go on and on, a sort of means by which Big Jim and I could just keep floating down the river of life, never having to look and see what was actually going by.
But I remembered something Puddingtate said to Big Jim. Back by the creek. He said that the overseer would whip the slaves on the cotton plantations if they didn’t bring in their share. I wondered if he’d told anyone. If word had gotten back to Widow Jones about what Pa and Joss had done.
Big Jim opened the Dick and Jane book and said, “Puddingtate’s the only one that knows.”
I looked up at him. “Are you sure?”
“Yessum. And he only knows it happened. Not who done it.”
I searched his face the way a hunter looks at a field, scouring it for imperfections. A broken twig here, an antler-scraped branch there. There was nothing. Only a certain purity I’d come to expect.
“Ain’t you told your momma?”
“No, ma’am,” he said, moving his head real slow as he looked down at the floorboards. “I don’t want to worry her none.”
“But what about your whip marks? How they gonna heal?”
“It’s all right. I went down to the river and let the water soak ‘em good.”
I felt like our little river raft just got stuck in the mud when he said that. I’d seen some of Pa’s scars from hopping a barbed wire fence. They healed up all crooked along his legs.
“Big Jim, you need something for them marks.”
“Yessum,” he said, laying his head back like he was ready for a nap.
I didn’t wait for him to start snoring. I dropped the ladder and hightailed it to the house. Rufus was lolling on the porch, his tongue hanging out like he was a frog trying to catch flies. Momma kept her home remedies in the cupboard, and I grabbed what I could carry. A jar of clover honey, some gauze bandages, and a paste Momma made from witch hazel leaves.
When I got back to the fort, Big Jim was snoring away. Probably hadn’t been able to sleep good with his back all torn up.
“Big Jim,” I said, grabbing him by the arm. It was harder than Hattie Mae’s rolling pin.
He shot straight up, and I sat back on my heels.
“I brought the home remedies,” I said, holding out the jar of honey.
“Lord, Miss Chloe. You brought the whole cupboard.”
“I gotta put some honey on your back,” I said, unscrewing the lid.
“You mean, you’re gonna rub honey on me?”
“It’s gotta be done so turn around already.”
“Yessum.”
He turned around real slow like and removed his shirt. I could tell he was embarrassed by the way he hunched his shoulders and wrapped his arms around himself. I was embarrassed myself. I hadn’t ever been this close to a half-naked man before.
First thing I noticed were the three red streaks. They’d puffed up real bad like gopher mounds. I wanted to look away and pretend the welts weren’t caused by my own kin. And yet, the welts seemed to be calling me. Asking me to apply the balm of Gilead.
I took a deep breath and said, “Now, this won’t hurt a bit.”
I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I turned the jar upside down. All that rich honey that Pa liked to pour on his biscuits came drizzling out. It went slowly at first, like Momma’s pan drippings, easing into those cuts like it knew some healing needed to be done.
“That feel all right?”
&nb
sp; “Yessum.”
I’d watched Momma warm her hands real good and rub Caleb’s arms with honey when he’d been out hunting. He’d come home with scratches from all them sticker bushes. I wanted to do the same with Big Jim, but as my hands hovered over him, I felt Pa’s words come against me.
They ain’t right in the head, Chloe. Maybe you ain’t right in the head neither. I oughta have you committed for taking up with that nigger.
Pa was trying to scare me real bad, but I wouldn’t let him. I dipped my hands in the jar so that honey dripped from my fingers like it was fresh from the comb. I moved my hands real easy over Big Jim’s back like I was greasing a pan. I got to wondering if this is how them bees felt, gathering up all that nectar to bring back to the hive. They did it rain or shine, spring and summer, literally working themselves to death, Pa said. That’s what it took, sometimes. You just couldn’t quit. Not for nothing.
The floorboards of the tree fort creaked a little, and the leaves got to rustling. I took it to mean all them years of Carolina history knew what we were doing. It liked to scream at me every time my lily-white hand touched Big Jim’s darker-than-molasses skin. Every time I thought of him down at the river shack and me in the shotgun house. Every time I heard them lynch mobs, calling for the blood of Moses who looked too long at Miss Priscilla. Who touched her under a Carolina moon.
I hoped that wouldn’t be me and Big Jim. Not when he needed me to guide that honey into those soft places, to all that tissue that’d been torn up like the earth after a good hoeing. Heck, I needed it, too. I needed to feel like I could disrupt the natural course of things, stem the tide, so to speak, and bring some good out of this mess.
Maybe that’s what it was for me because all I could feel were Big Jim’s shoulders relaxing as I smoothed honey over them, as if he was finally letting go of what he’d been carrying. I’d been carrying it too, I realized. My breathing got real slow and easy, and I got to thinking honey really was the balm of Gilead.
I let it get saturated into all those nooks and crannies as I thought about them Pharisees that got mad at Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. They were wrong, the preacher at the church on Mulberry said. He said Jesus was right to heal the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda. That it ain’t a sin for God to heal any old time he wants.