by Lisa Belmont
I couldn’t hardly believe my ears. Momma had never said anything that good before. Not even to Caleb.
Big Jim got real tickled and said, “Yessum. I did what the Good Book says.”
I’d never seen him so happy. He left and Momma gave Hattie Mae a hug. Lord, our hearts were so busted open we got to laughing and crying right in Widow Jones’ kitchen.
“They’re called Diamond Jubilee,” Momma said that evening when Pa asked about the roses on the mantle. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
Pa shrugged and went back to reading Li’l Abner. Once, though, I caught him giving the roses a real good sniff like he was Rufus on a coon hunt. Course, when he found out they were from Widow Jones’ garden, he liked to have a fit. He got to raving about her threatening him and Joss something awful. He grabbed his gun and went outside to shoot the first animal he could find. Lord, I hated to think what he would’ve done if he knew Big Jim had given them to Momma. There’d have been a lynching, for sure.
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
Chapter Forty-Five
They say when a boy’s heart has been broken, he can get to acting mighty strange. I figured that’s why Caleb would sit on the front porch and pluck his banjo. His fingers would get going over the strings and drown out all the aching he was feeling inside.
Momma said it would just take time for Caleb to get over Emma Kate.
“Betrayal ain’t an easy thing to overcome,” she said one afternoon while we were inspecting the birdhouses we’d hung from the crabapples.
Almost all the seed was eaten up, so Momma and I decided to make some more.
“Seems like Caleb doesn’t know where he fits in anymore, Momma,” I said, as we walked to the house.
She put her arm around me and told me that Caleb would figure it out. “Every man has to find his own way.”
I hoped that was the case cuz the last thing I wanted was for Caleb to let Emma Kate make him feel bad.
In the kitchen, Momma and I made a concoction of seeds and nuts for the birds. We mixed them up real good with peanut butter as Caleb walked in the front door. He held his head low and his hands were tucked way down deep in his pockets. I was hoping he wasn’t still torn up over Emma Kate, but I had a feeling that’s exactly what was wrong.
Pa was reading his Li’l Abner comic strip and didn’t look up until Caleb went straight to his room.
“Boy,” Pa called so loud it shook the walls of the house. “Where are your manners?”
Caleb came out of his room and stood in the doorway. I was too busy smearing peanut butter on them seeds to bother looking up until Pa’s chair screeched across the floorboards. That’s when I saw Caleb’s black eye.
Momma brought him a cold cloth and he held it to his face.
“What happened, boy?” Pa said.
“Got in a fight.”
“Did you win?”
Caleb shook his head.
Pa took out his pipe and lit it.
“Can I go?” Caleb said, standing there like he was a soldier on duty. His lip was busted pretty bad and his cheek was swelled up like he was sucking on a plum.
“I reckon,” Pa said.
Caleb headed for his room as Pa muttered under his breath, “Never thought no boy of mine couldn’t win no fight.”
Caleb stopped, and I could tell he was wondering if he should say something.
“Other boy’s hurt pretty bad.”
Pa settled back in his chair and smoked his pipe like he was something.
“I bet he didn’t come home crying to his momma,” he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Hell, even that boy of Hattie Mae’s can take a licking like a man.”
I’d never seen Caleb flush so bright. He threw down the towel and went out the front door. I ran after him, trying to keep up as he moved through the woods. He cut a swath through the overgrown grass and landed up at the little spot down by the creek where we used to pretend we were the king and queen of the forest. He sat at the edge of the creek, and I sat with him.
“Don’t be upset, Caleb. Pa don’t mean what he said.”
“Pa always means what he says.”
That got me to shut up. He was right.
Caleb drew his knees to his chest and crossed his arms. He put his head down and I noticed the freckles on his hands.
“Who gave you a black eye?” I said, picking up a rock and throwing it.
“Henry.”
“Henry Bleekman? Your best friend?”
Caleb looked up. “Don’t be so surprised. Folk ain’t always what you think.”
The decaying scent of pluff mud lingered something awful. It was always the strongest scent down by the tidal creeks.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I asked anyway. “Why’d you fight Henry?”
Caleb glanced at me. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“I understand plenty.”
Caleb got to his feet and faced the Ashley. The river was muted in hues of orange and pink as the sun melted behind the trees. Everything got real still and I didn’t think Caleb was gonna tell me, but when an osprey flew overhead, he looked at me and said, “Henry wants to take Emma Kate to Lovers’ Lane tonight. Said he’s made up his mind.”
A breeze blew and everything got real cool and dark all of a sudden. I went to Caleb and said, “Henry’s a traitor. I’m glad you beat him up.”
A few blackberries were scattered on a thorny vine, and Caleb took one, tossing it in his mouth.
When we were kids, we used to play in these woods for hours, ruling our kingdom of squirrels and possums. Caleb would take a pine branch and whittle a sword, and I’d drape Spanish moss through my hair. We’d collect acorns and mulberries and make fishing poles from willow branches. Caleb would tell me stories about cowboys and Indians. How the Indians would make covenants in blood and become “blood brothers,” promising to always be loyal. I didn’t want anything more than to become a blood brother, so I took a knife from Momma’s drawer one morning, and me and Caleb went down to the little salt creek and tied our wrists together with twine.
“It won’t hurt,” I told him, taking the knife and making a small cut in each of our wrists. We pressed them together until blood ran down our arms in a crimson streak. We were too awestruck to wash it off while we sat there, listening to the cicadas.
I thought Caleb and Henry were the same way. Blood brothers.
The sun went down on the Ashley and Caleb grabbed a handful of berries. They got to glistening in the evaporating light, and I thought he was gonna give me some, but he closed his hand and crushed every last one until red juice squeezed through his fingers.
“I realized something today that liked to shake me bad.”
A breeze rustled over us, and I felt every nerve on edge.
“What did you realize?” I said, waiting for him to say it.
Caleb looked at me, the right side of his face so swollen and puffy it looked like he’d rubbed himself with poison ivy.
“I realized I’m never gonna be Briscoe Mason.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was my older brother, the one who never cried, not even when he’d been bit by a squirrel that we thought was rabid. He just laid in his room while Momma kept checking him for fever, and not once did he shed a tear. He’d skinned himself from top to bottom when he went hunting with Pa the first time. Fell in a patch of poison ivy that gave him a rash for weeks. Even got bit by a snake down at the river when he and Henry were looking for old shipwrecks. But not once had I seen Caleb cry.
That’s why it downright startled me when he got to tearing up. He wiped his face something awful and I went to him.
“You ain’t gotta be Briscoe Mason. Jes’ be Caleb.”
He looked at me so pitiful and said, “Pa don’t want Caleb.”
That liked to do something to me. S
omething real bad. I didn’t want to think about it, but it seemed to come up anyway. I fidgeted with the twisted vine of a blackberry, pulling and tugging until one of the thorns cut my finger. A little drop of blood spilled on the grass, and everything got real still.
“Never told you, Caleb, but one time Pa hurt me. Hurt me real bad.”
“Pa hurt you?”
“Not with a paddling or a spanking. No, not that way. That woulda healed up a lot better n’ what he did.”
“What’d he do?” Caleb said, looking at me like the whole world had gone cattywampus-cockeyed.
“I opened his old chest, the one he keeps under lock and key. I took out some Confederate money and the tin cup Briscoe drank from when he was out in the field.”
“No kidding?”
“When Pa came in and found me, he grabbed all them things and paddled me good. He said, ‘Chloe, you ain’t actin’ no better than a nigger. And guess what? I sure as hell can’t be lovin’ no nigger.’”
The words hovered in the air as the autumn breeze rustled. I wondered if they’d follow me wherever I went, kind of like my own honorary ghost of Foxhole Swamp.
Maybe that’s why all of Pa’s wrath may have been poured out on Big Jim, and yet, at times, I felt like some of it was spilling over on me. Maybe that’s why I went to the tree fort and taught Big Jim to read. Why I poured honey on his wounds and walked him to the Negro section. Maybe cuz it wasn’t so much Big Jim I was helping. It was me. I was trying to prove to myself that I was worth loving.
Caleb grabbed a twig and snapped it in two. He flung it as far as it’d go. I watched it drift on the water, nothing but the lonely sound of the tide.
“You ain’t gotta do it no more, Caleb.”
“Do what?”
“Try to please Pa.”
It was a look I’ll never forget. There was a fatigue around his eyes, and his chest heaved like it just wanted some relief. Maybe that was the problem. There was no relief in sight.
“All I know,” he said, looking at me real hard, “is that what Pa said was the truth.”
“No, Caleb,” I said, stepping away.
“Listen to me, Chloe,” he said, grabbing me by the shoulders. “It ain’t worth it, okay? Pa don’t love nothing that gets to acting up.”
I knew it was true. I knew it the way the fiddler crabs moved slowly over the pluff mud at the salt marshes.
“Don’t go against Pa,” he said. “Promise me, Chloe.”
I knew what he meant. Don’t see Big Jim again.
Caleb held me in his gaze a moment more before I turned away. I felt like I’d just been slapped.
He took off down the trail and I watched him go, knowing right then and there, that he was right. No matter how many times Pa had set me on his knee and called me his little Buttercup, it wouldn’t matter. Nothing would matter once Pa knew what I'd become.
The cure for all ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows and the crimes of humanity, all lie in the one word ‘love.’ It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life.
Lydia Maria Child
Chapter Forty-Six
I’d never felt so alone in all my life. It seemed like all the hurt in the world was swelling inside of me until I was drowning. I told myself I wouldn’t get upset over Caleb, though. I wouldn’t let his fear trickle down inside me the way the little waterfall splashed into the pool on Lovers’ Lane.
That’s why I lied and told Pa I’d seen a real big coon out by the chicken coop. I knew that’d keep him out most of the night.
“Dang coons are taking over,” Pa said, getting up from his chair. “Gotta get me a bloodhound like Joss.”
Joss’s hound was real good at tracking. Wasn’t nothing like ol’ Rufus.
Pa grabbed his gun from the mantle, and Momma got to kneading her biscuit dough real good.
“Li’l ol’ coon’s jes’ trying to feed himself,” she said. “We can spare a few eggs.”
It was the first time I’d heard Momma speak up. Pa looked at her like he’d never seen her before. Maybe he hadn’t. Momma was looking mighty tired these days. She’d stopped putting her hair up in curlers and you could see dark shadows under her eyes.
I thought maybe Pa would go up to Momma and give her a big hug like he used to, but instead, he took a swig of moonshine and hollered, “Caleb, get your gun.”
Caleb threw on his hunting cap and, Lord, if he didn’t look like Pa’s spitting image. He grabbed his coat and took off after Pa, old Rufus barking after them.
Momma pushed the rolling pin down on the dough like she was flattening Pa out something good. I’d never seen her so fired up.
I don’t know why I was so nervous, but I felt like, at any moment, Pa and Caleb were gonna come through the front door and say they shot a coon. Only it wasn’t gonna be a coon; it was gonna be Big Jim.
Momma was nervous, too. She finished up with the biscuits and sat with me by the fire. Besides feeding them critters, Momma liked to knit when she was worked up about something. One autumn, when Pa wanted to break the county record for shooting the most deer, Momma liked to run out of yarn. Me and Caleb had so many wool sweaters we could have passed for sheep.
She handed me a pair of knitting needles and we got to working. Wasn’t nothing like the feel of them wooden sticks to calm a soul. When the fire went out, I put a log on the grate and lit a match. A flame got going and I jabbed the log, watching the firelight do a little dance.
I didn’t know why I was having this riled up feeling like something bad was about to happen, but I sat in Pa’s hand-carved rocker and let the slow movement take over, hoping it’d get my mind off Big Jim.
“Momma,” I said. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Well, you love all them critters real good. The rabbits and possums. Even the coons that like to eat our eggs.”
“True.”
“So, how do you put up with Pa and Caleb’s hunting?”
Momma set her knitting in her lap and looked at me in the firelight. “Sometimes you gotta choose, Chloe. You gotta choose to love someone, despite how they’re acting.”
I let her words sink way down in me. Maybe I wasn’t doing so good with that. I was having a real hard time loving Pa.
The wind got to whistling, and within no time Pa and Caleb came through the front door. Rufus was barking like he’d treed the biggest coon this side of Savannah.
“Did you get the coon?”
“No,” Caleb said, putting his gun on the mantle.
“But we saw something I want to get more than that darn coon,” Pa said. “That tree fort down by the swamp. I’m gonna burn it down.”
I felt my stomach drop. “Won’t Widow Jones be mad? It’s on her property.”
“Widow Jones can go to hell for all I care. Damn woman’s threatened me enough,” he said, grabbing his jug of moonshine. “Besides, them boards are from the sawmill. They’ve been stolen.”
“Stolen?” Momma said.
“Caleb and I recognized ‘em right off. They’re the throwaway pieces we make into wood chips down at the mill. That means someone from the mill took ‘em and I know who. Sure as I’m standing here, that nigger’s done squatted himself a home right on Widow Jones’ property. Right in that ol’ swamp chestnut.”
Pa looked like he was fit to be tied. He held that jug by its handle and said, “Carlton would be rolling over in his grave if he knew what Widow Jones was up to. Ain’t nothin’ like a woman to destroy everything a man’s worked for.”
“Mason,” Momma said, using her real sweet voice to calm him down. “Ain’t no sense burning down no fort. Jes’ come relax by the fire a spell. It’ll do you some good.”
Momma kept a jar of money in the cupboard and it was getting mighty low. I knew Pa was feeling real bad about not having a job, but if he went around burning up Widow Jones’ property, there’d be hell to pay.
“Ain’t that lawyer of hers gonna be mighty upset if you destroy
her property?” I said.
“That lawyer in Charleston ain’t gonna know who did it, is he?” Pa said, going to the door.
“Mason, get a hold of yourself,” Momma said. “There’s a legend about that tree.”
“Legend, my butt.”
“It’s something about the Swamp Fox. It’s real old and cherished ‘round these parts. Don’t be burning it down.”
“Don’t be burning it down,” he mimicked, opening the door.
“Where are you going?” she cried.
“To Uncle Hickory’s.”
“The general store ain’t open this late.”
“He’ll open up for me.”
“What are you gonna get?”
“Gasoline,” he said.
He left out the front door and I liked to died.
Momma got to carrying on about Uncle Hickory and how he better not give Pa none of that gasoline.
“Go get him,” she told Caleb. “Stop your pa from doing something stupid.”
Caleb grabbed his coat and left in a hurry. I hoped he’d talk some sense into Pa, but I doubted it. I told Momma I’d help too, but I went to the fort instead.
A lantern was flickering from the tree and the sound of hammering echoed through the swamp. I climbed up the rope ladder and saw Big Jim fixing some warped boards. He liked to beam with surprise when he saw me.
“You didn’t get my note?” I said, panting real hard.
“What note?”
“We gotta get outta here. Pa’s gonna burn down the fort,” I said, leaning out the window.
I imagined an angry mob of townsfolk carrying pitchforks and torches. They’d encircle the tree and curse me and Big Jim like we were a couple of witches conjuring up spells.
I pulled my head through the rough opening and my choker came right off. It fell to the branches below and, Lord, if it didn’t glisten in the moonlight. It was sparkling real good.
“Miss Chloe, we gotta go,” Big Jim said.
I took one last look as Big Jim climbed down the ladder. I followed him and, as I got to the bottom, Pa came up the trail singing real loud.
I wish I was in the land of cotton,