by Lisa Belmont
I looked at Big Jim, feeling like we had something in common with that hog. We might as well have been on the receiving end of Pa’s knife – it went right down through the belly and penetrated through to the innards.
That’s what a secret does to you. It makes you feel like, at any moment, you’ll be exposed. I watched those pig guts come spilling out and felt like that could be me. For a moment, I wondered if it was worth it. Part of me still wanted to be Pa’s little Buttercup. The little girl who’d sit on his knee when he’d come back from a deer hunt and listen to his tall tales.
Caleb pulled hard on the pig as he slit its backside. The branch of the tree liked to nearly come off.
“Take it easy, son,” Pa told him. “It’s already dead.”
I knew Caleb was trying to impress Pa. He always was, whether it was hunting a turkey, shooting a duck or skinning a hog. There wasn’t a thing Caleb wanted more than a slap on the back from Pa.
After a while, Pa and Caleb got done admiring their work and wrapped the meat in butcher paper. They moved the cart down the road, and when I couldn’t hear the wheels bumping over the rocks anymore, I told Big Jim I had to go.
I climbed down the rope ladder and hightailed it home. As I went, I realized there wasn’t nothing as tiring as a secret.
Every great dream begins with a dreamer.
Harriet Tubman
Chapter Twenty-One
Caleb walked me to school the next day, bragging about all the traps he’d set out for the coon. He was mad he hadn’t got it yet. I guess since hunting wasn’t working, he decided he had to resort to traps.
“I’ll get him good,” he said. “That coon can’t hardly walk from a cattail to a crawdad without getting stuck in a bear trap.”
I looked at my brother like he’d gone crazy. “You set out a bear trap for a little ol’ coon?”
“Henry’s dad had some in his shed. Told me not to let Rufus go down by the swamp.”
Joss would have them ol’ bear traps. His granddaddy was known to go around shooting the biggest animals he could find. He’d shoot cougars and bears and big bucks with all them antlers.
“Just don’t forget where you set them traps,” I said. “Might step in one yourself.”
My brother took a piece of paper from his pocket and showed it to me.
“Got it all mapped out. I know where every last one of them traps is.”
I wanted to tell him to pick up every last cotton-picking trap this instant, but Emma Kate walked up with one of them cashmere sweaters that you wanted to touch just to feel how soft it was.
“Hi Caleb,” she said. “What you got there?”
She held a book in her hand and moved back and forth so that her dress twirled a little.
“Nothing, just a map.”
“Can I see?” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.
Her father, Hickory Wilcox, had apparently gotten wind of Emma Kate inviting Caleb over for pie and didn’t like it none. He said she was too young to have a beau, so she and Caleb were pretty much reduced to flirting in the schoolyard.
Caleb held out the map and, Lord, if his hand didn’t get to shaking something fierce. I knew he was nervous as all get-out. He always was around Emma Kate. Course, she didn’t know he was always plucking on his banjo on the front porch, pining over her something fierce.
“What are these X’s for?”
“I’ve marked off where I’ve shot them coons.”
“You’ve shot that many coons?”
“Darn near two dozen.”
I rolled my eyes. If that wasn’t something. Caleb and Emma Kate making goo-goo eyes over all them imaginary coons.
“A girl’d feel mighty safe with you around.”
“I reckon,” he said, pawing at the dirt.
I was glad when the school bell rang. Emma Kate touched Caleb’s arm and said, “I’ve got to go to class. See you later.”
He watched her strawberry blond curls bounce all the way to Miss Duncan’s class before he came out of his trance.
“Darn near two dozen?” I said, shaking my head.
“Ain’t lied. I will shoot that many someday.”
Lord, I was glad I ain’t in love. Love would turn you into a Pinocchio for sure.
I got to class and sat at my desk in the third row as Miss Lilly wrote on the chalkboard THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 1861-1865.
Miss Lilly looked real pretty in a yellow dress. It made her ginger hair and green eyes pop. She always wore a little brooch, and today it was a hummingbird. It had pink crystals on its belly and shiny green crystals on its wings. I used to wonder how she could afford such nice jewelry on a teacher’s salary until I saw the same little trinkets down at Uncle Hickory’s store.
I ignored the gnawing feeling that I might know everything Miss Lilly was gonna teach on The War Between the States.
“Okay, class,” Miss Lilly said, standing by the chalkboard. “Who knows what an abolitionist is?”
Margaret Wilcox raised her hand, and Miss Lilly called on her.
“Yes, Margaret.”
“It’s someone who studies about all them plants.”
Margaret was Hickory Wilcox’s daughter. She always had real pretty dresses, just like Emma Kate, cuz their daddy got in all kinds of fabric wholesale at the general store.
“No, Margaret, that’s a botanist,” Miss Lilly said, turning around with a straight back. I always hoped I’d have posture that nice when I grew up.
Miss Lilly wrote on the board that an abolitionist was someone who wanted to abolish, or do away with, slavery. That got me to thinking about last Christmas in church when Momma and Pa were singing Oh, Holy Night. I mouthed the words as Miss Lilly went on about John Brown and Harriet Tubman, two famous abolitionists who risked their lives for the cause of freeing slaves.
Truly He taught us to love one another; His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
I stopped at that line, thinking on it real hard. The slave is our brother, the song said. Didn’t Pa know what he was singing? Sometimes I wanted to ask him if he hadn’t learned anything from Mr. Iverson’s preaching.
Miss Lilly went on to talk about the Underground Railroad and all them folks who tried to free the slaves. That’s all I wanted. To free Big Jim. Lord, them abolitionists had their work cut out for them dealing with all them plantation owners, but when I really started thinking about it, I had something worse. I had Pa.
No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
Frederick Douglass
Chapter Twenty-Two
I raced to the fort the next afternoon, so excited to tell Big Jim what I learned in class. He wasn’t going to believe what them abolitionists did to help his kinfolk.
I climbed up the rope ladder, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight, so I took out the Bible and flipped to the page I was going to teach from. Sometimes I wondered if Miss Lilly would get a kick out of knowing I was a teacher, too.
I found the story of David and Goliath and read to the part where Goliath made a ruckus about wanting to defeat the army of Israel. Who would’ve thought a little shepherd boy like David would gather stones for his slingshot, just like Caleb, and do in that ornery, low-down giant? Ain’t that something?
I leaned against the wall of the fort, wondering where Big Jim was, when a bloodcurdling scream echoed across the swamp. I looked out the cutout window and caught a glimpse of Big Jim through the fluttering leaves. He was rocking back and forth in the tall grass.
“Big Jim,” I hollered. “You okay?”
He caterwauled something awful, so I climbed down the ladder. I wondered if he’d got bit by a snake. Or maybe bee stung. Maybe now he’d quit sticking his hand in them hives.
I started thinking how I’d scold him as I hurried through the shade trees. When I rounded the bend of tall grass, none other than Margaret Wilcox and her
momma were coming down the path. Margaret was wearing a pink gingham dress with white patent-leather shoes, and she was licking one of them lollipops from her daddy’s store. Her momma was walking beside her, fanning away the heat.
They didn’t see me, so I ducked behind a white oak. Big Jim had stopped caterwauling, but he was moaning real good.
I watched from behind the tree as Mrs. Wilcox peered through the tall grass. She had on a sheer, pale blue dress and had forgotten to put on a slip. I could see right through to her legs. She pulled Margaret close and said, “What happened to you, boy?”
Big Jim reached out his hand. “Please ma’am,” he said, sweat trickling down his brow. “I’m hurt bad.”
The spartina grass was tall around Big Jim, waving in the breeze. “It’s my leg.”
Margaret pulled at her momma’s sleeve like she was four years old. It was a sight. A white woman had been raped by a Negro over in Pickens County, and everyone was real nervous.
Big Jim got to moaning again, and Margaret dropped her lollipop.
“Please ma’am,” Big Jim said. “I’m hurt awful bad.”
“He ain’t hurt, Momma. He’s wanting to lure us in them bushes,” Margaret said.
Mrs. Wilcox didn’t waste any time backing away from the tall grass. She gripped Margaret’s hand and said, “Don’t you try nothin’, boy. You stay away from us.”
“Please, ma’am.”
Mrs. Wilcox and Margaret got to running down the path like a pack of wolves were after them. Twice they looked back to make sure Big Jim wasn’t following them.
Big Jim moaned something fierce, and I hoped it was nothing more than a sprain, but when I came close, I saw the sharp metal jaws of one of Caleb’s traps clamped around his ankle. I liked to died.
“Big Jim, you gotta get this thing off you,” I said, trying to pry it apart. The jaws were solid steel and they were fastened on Big Jim’s boot tighter than a nail in a coffin.
I sat back on my heels. “Ain’t no use me trying. You’re gonna have to do it, Big Jim. You gotta try to get that trap apart.”
Sweat oozed from his brow like he was a tree dripping sap. He grabbed them metal jaws in his hands and, as God is my witness, he pried them apart. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it. I exhaled the biggest sigh of relief as he sat back against the trunk of the old swamp chestnut that had Caleb’s initials carved into it.
“You ain’t gonna faint, are you?”
“No.”
“Me neither, Big Jim. I promise I won’t faint.”
He had on thick leather boots, the kind they’d wear down at the sawmill. I was grateful for that, at least, and pulled off the boot, real slow like. He got to wincing something fierce. There was a deep, bloodied gash that made a ring around his ankle.
“You need Doc Maybley bad.”
Big Jim laid back in that tall grass and closed his eyes.
“I’ll get him, Big Jim. Don’t you worry none.”
It wasn’t more than a mile to Doc Maybley’s, but I knew every second counted. I crested the little peak that had a sign pointing to Charleston and found Doc Maybley’s little white cottage that he’d converted into a doctor’s office.
I flew up the porch steps and flung open the screen door.
“Doc Maybley,” I hollered.
In no time, he poked his head out of his office and gave me a grimace. “Land’s sake, child. What’s all this hollerin’ about?”
“Big Jim’s hurt awful bad. A bear trap got him.”
“A bear trap?”
“He’s down by the swamp. You gotta come quick.”
“Mrs. Bleekman’s here,” he said, opening the door wide so I could see Joss’s wife, Alma.
She was sitting on Doc Maybley’s exam table in a pale green and white seersucker dress. She gave me a hard stare and I felt every ounce of her taking me for some kind of Negro sympathizer.
“Chloe, Doc Maybley’s finishing up with me,” she said, patting her tummy.
Her dress stretched over her rounded belly, and I realized that she was “in the family way,” as Momma liked to call it. Mrs. Bleekman was going to have a baby.
“But Doc, Big Jim’s hurt real bad. You gotta come quick.”
He patted me on the shoulder and told me to wait outside. The door shut, and I felt the entire world collapse around me.
I thought of Big Jim lying there in the grass like a wounded animal. His leg was pretty bad tore up and I wondered if he’d be able to walk again. I got so antsy that I decided to take matters into my own hands.
Doc Maybley had a glass cabinet in the back where I’d seen him get medicine. I gathered a bottle of quinine, some castor oil – Momma always said that cured everything – a little dropper bottle of iodine, some washcloths and a wax Coke-shaped bottle with colored sugar water inside. I dropped them all in a black bag and knocked on the door. I told Doc Maybley I’d meet him out by the big swamp chestnut. I was glad the tree was so famous.
I took the supplies and hurried through the overgrown sassafras that led to the swamp. I could hear Big Jim before I even got close. He was howling up a storm and it got me to thinking of all the horrible things I wanted to do to Caleb. First, I’d take his Babe Ruth baseball cards and toss them to the gators. Then, I’d pour honey down the barrel of his gun.
A few crows had gathered in the branches above Big Jim. They leaned over real good and cawed at him like they were waiting for him to die.
I dropped the sack full of supplies next to Big Jim and he grimaced, “Where’s the doctor?”
“He’s coming. Couldn’t keep up.”
Big Jim nodded and laid his head back.
I took the bottle of iodine, like Momma would do for my cuts, and poured it all over Big Jim’s wound.
“It stings, Miss Chloe,” he winced. “It stings real bad.”
“It’ll keep it from getting infected,” I said, thinking all I needed was for Big Jim to lose a foot. “Here,” I said, handing him the Coke-bottle candy. “Try it. It’s real sweet.”
He didn’t want any. He kept twitching his leg like it’d make the pain go away.
“Where’s the doctor?” he said again.
“I told him which tree,” I said, looking back at the trail. “Lord, I hope he ain’t getting senile.”
Big Jim looked at me with them big brown eyes, and said, “He ain’t coming, is he Miss Chloe?”
I think all the blood drained from my face when he said that.
“Course, he is.”
“Don’t lie to me. Is he comin’?”
“I think so.”
“Think so mean no.”
“He’s gotta come. I told him you’re hurt real bad.”
“He ain’t gotta do nothin’.”
Beads of sweat glinted on his face, and a pair of flies buzzed around his wound. I swat at them real good, realizing what he said was true. Doc Maybley wasn’t coming.
I got to thinking I’d run to Uncle Hickory’s store and see if I could find anyone to help. It was a long shot, but maybe some kind soul would take pity on us.
I got as far as the trail when Puddingtate came along singing one of his Negro spirituals. Widow Jones had sent him to the store to get some things for her ladies’ bridge game on Saturday. He nearly dropped his suspenders when he saw Big Jim.
“Lord, you caught in a trap?”
“Go tell Widow Jones. And fast, Puddingtate,” I said, giving him a shove.
“Yessum,” he said, giving the list from Widow Jones an uneasy glance before pocketing it. He kept up a good pace and only looked back a couple times. He probably thought it downright strange to see me and Big Jim out here alone together.
Big Jim got to moaning real good. He liked to grit his teeth to pieces until I put a cloth in his mouth for him to bite down on.
“Puddingtate will tell her,” I said, hoping it wouldn’t get dark before he came back. “Don’t you worry none.”
The sun went down as a cart rattled along the p
ath. Widow Jones’ foreman, Samson, and a couple work hands came with lanterns. I’d never been so glad to see three black men in my life. Course, word was that Joss was madder n’ all get-out that Widow Jones had hired a black man to be the foreman of Whitehall. Joss wanted that job real bad and, apparently, told her it was a sin what she was doing. That Carlton Jones would be rolling over in his grave.
I was just glad when they lifted Big Jim onto the cart and put a blanket under his head. I went with them all the way back to Whitehall, even though I knew Pa would be worried, if not downright suspicious.
Widow Jones directed them to place Big Jim in the guest room. Lord, she made over him real good and even called her doctor from Charleston. His name was Dr. Fontaine, and he came within the hour. He was of French descent and carried a little black bag. It was his tawny hair that caught my eye, though. It had little golden streaks through it that I couldn’t take my eyes off of, not even when he handed me a chocolate candy wrapped in foil.
“You were very brave to stay with James,” he said.
I’d never seen a white man treat Big Jim so good before.
He said, “James, you’re to stay off that foot and take this medicine, okay?”
Big Jim got to nodding real good and, Lord, if he didn’t drink every drop of that medicine. The doctor said it was a miracle the trap hadn’t gone through the bone. I figured it was them thick boots Big Jim was always wearing.
“My baby,” Hattie Mae said, sitting on the edge of Big Jim’s bed. She kissed his knuckles, real sweet like, and said, “Momma’s here and everything’s going to be all right. You jes’ rest up now, you hear?”
She kissed his forehead, and the doctor escorted everyone out of the room. We congregated in the kitchen and the doctor pulled out a chair for Hattie Mae.
She sat down, real uneasy like and said, “How bad is it, doc?”
He adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses and said, “I hate to say this, but he’ll probably keep the limp.”