Delia pushed back her plate and got up from the table. “Ah hates you, Sykes,” she said calmly. “Ah hates you tuh de same degree dat Ah uster love yuh. Ah done took an’ took till mah belly is full up tuh mah neck. Dat’s de reason Ah got mah letter fum de church an’ moved mah membership tuh Woodbridge—so Ah don’t haftuh take no sacrament wid yuh. Ah don’t wantuh see yuh ’roun’ me atall. Lay ’roun’ wid dat ’oman all yuh wants tuh, but gwan ’way fum me an’ mah house. Ah hates yuh lak uh suck-egg dog.”
Sykes almost let the huge wad of corn bread and collard greens he was chewing fall out of his mouth in amazement. He had a hard time whipping himself up to the proper fury to try to answer Delia.
“Well, Ah’m glad you does hate me. Ah’m sho’ tiahed uh you hangin’ ontuh me. Ah don’t want yuh. Look at yuh stringy ole neck! Yo’ rawbony laigs an’ arms is enough tuh cut uh man tuh death. You looks jes’ lak de devvul’s doll-baby tuh me. You cain’t hate me no worse dan Ah hates you. Ah been hatin’ you fuh years.”
“Yo’ ole black hide don’t look lak nothin’ tuh me, but uh passle uh wrinkled up rubber, wid yo’ big ole yeahs flappin’ on each side lak uh paih uh buzzard wings. Don’t think Ah’m gointuh be run ’way fum mah house neither. Ah’m goin’ tuh de white folks bout you, mah young man, de very nex’ time you lay yo’ han’s on me. Mah cup is done run ovah.” Delia said this with no signs of fear and Sykes departed from the house, threatening her, but made not the slightest move to carry out any of them.
That night he did not return at all, and the next day being Sunday, Delia was glad that she did not have to quarrel before she hitched up her pony and drove the four miles to Woodbridge.
She stayed to the night service—“Love feast”—which was very warm and full of spirit. In the emotional winds her domestic trials were borne far and wide so that she sang as she drove homeward,
“Jurden water, black an’ col’
Chills de body, not de soul
An’ Ah wantah cross Jurden in uh calm time.”
She came from the barn to the kitchen door and stopped.
“Whut’s de mattah, ol’ satan, you aint kickin’ up yo’ racket?” She addressed the snake’s box. Complete silence. She went on into the house with a new hope in its birth struggles. Perhaps her threat to go to the white folks had frightened Sykes! Perhaps he was sorry! Fifteen years of misery and suppression had brought Delia to the place where she would hope anything that looked towards a way over or through her wall of inhibitions.
She felt in the match safe behind the stove at once for a match. There was only one there.
“Dat niggah wouldn’t fetch nothin’ heah tuh save his rotten neck, but he kin run thew whut Ah brings quick enough. Now he done toted off nigh on tuh haff uh box uh matches. He done had dat ’oman heah in mah house, too.”
Nobody but a woman could tell how she knew this even before she struck the match. But she did and it put her into a new fury.
Presently she brought in the tubs to put the white things to soak. This time she decided she need not bring the hamper out of the bedroom; she would go in there and do the sorting. She picked up the pot-bellied lamp and went in. The room was small and the hamper stood hard by the foot of the white iron bed. She could sit and reach through the bedposts—resting as she worked.
“Ah wantah cross Jurden in uh calm time.” She was singing again. The mood of the “love fest” had returned. She threw back the lid of the basket almost gaily. Then, moved by both horror and terror, she sprang back toward the door. There lay the snake in the basket! He moved sluggishly at first, but even as she turned round and round, jumped up and down in an insanity of fear, he began to stir vigorously. She saw him pouring his awful beauty from the basket upon the bed, then she seized the lamp and ran as fast as she could to the kitchen. The wind from the open door blew out the light and darkness added to her terror. She sped to the darkness of the yard, slamming the door after her before she thought to set down the lamp. She did not feel safe even on the ground, so she climbed up in the hay barn.
There for an hour or more she lay sprawled upon the hay a gibbering wreck.
Finally she grew quiet, and after that, coherent thought. With this, stalked through her a cold, bloody rage. Hours of this. A period of introspection, a space of retrospection, then a mixture of both. Out of this an awful calm.
“Well, Ah done de bes’ Ah could. If things aint right, Gawd knows taint mah fault.”
She went to sleep—a twitchy sleep—and woke up to a faint gray sky. There was a loud hollow sound below. She peered out. Sykes was at the wood-pile, demolishing a wire-covered box.
He hurried to the kitchen door, but hung outside there some minutes before he entered, and stood some minutes more inside before he closed it after him.
The gray in the sky was spreading. Delia descended without fear now, and crouched beneath the low bedroom window. The drawn shade shut out the dawn, shut in the night. But the thin walls held back no sound.
“Dat ol’ scratch is woke up now!” She mused at the tremendous whirr inside, which every woodsman knows, is one of the sound illusions. The rattler is a ventriloquist. His whirr sounds to the right, to the left, straight ahead, behind, close under foot—everywhere but where it is. Woe to him who guesses wrong unless he is prepared to hold up his end of the argument! Sometimes he strikes without rattling at all.
Inside, Sykes heard nothing until he knocked a pot lid off the stove while trying to reach the match safe in the dark. He had emptied his pockets at Bertha’s.
The snake seemed to wake up under the stove and Sykes made a quick leap into the bedroom. In spite of the gin he had had, his head was clearing now.
“Mah Gawd!” he chattered, “ef Ah could on’y strack uh light!”
The rattling ceased for a moment as he stood paralyzed. He waited. It seemed that the snake waited also.
“Oh, fuh de light! Ah thought he’d be too sick”—Sykes was muttering to himself when the whirr began again, closer, right underfoot this time. Long before this, Sykes’ ability to think had been flattened down to primitive instinct and he leaped—onto the bed.
Outside Delia heard a cry that might have come from a maddened chimpanzee, a stricken gorilla. All the terror, all the horror, all the rage that man possibly could express, without a recognizable human sound.
A tremendous stir inside there, another series of animal screams, the intermittent whirr of the reptile. The shade torn violently down from the window, letting in the red dawn, a huge brown hand seizing the window stick, great dull blows upon the wooden floor punctuating the gibberish of sound long after the rattle of the snake had abruptly subsided. All this Delia could see and hear from her place beneath the window, and it made her ill. She crept over to the four-o’clocks and stretched herself on the cool earth to recover.
She lay there. “Delia, Delia!” she could hear Sykes calling in a most despairing tone as one who expected no answer. The sun crept on up, and he called. Delia could not move—her legs were gone flabby. She never moved, he called, and the sun kept rising.
“Mah Gawd!” She heard him moan. “Mah Gawd fum Heben!” She heard him stumbling about and got up from her flower-bed. The sun was growing warm. As she approached the door she heard him call out hopefully, “Delia, is dat you Ah heah?”
She saw him on his hands and knees as soon as she reached the door. He crept an inch or two toward her—all that he was able, and she saw his horribly swollen neck and his one open eye shining with hope. A surge of pity too strong to support bore her away from that eye that must, could not, fail to see the tubs. He would see the lamp. Orlando with its doctors was too far. She could scarcely reach the Chinaberry tree, where she waited in the growing heat while inside she knew the cold river was creeping up and up to extinguish that eye which must know by now that she knew.
Under the Bridge
May in the Florida outdoors; May in the open house of Luke Mimms and May in the hearts of the three occupants of the house.
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Luke, the father-husband, was glowing. He was fifty-eight and God had granted him a pretty wife one summer less twenty. His son, Artie the beloved, twenty-two, had accepted her at last and was at peace with Luke. The world was bright. Fifty-eight is young after all with love.
Vangie was radiating ecstasy from her black eyes and brown skin. She, the homeless waif, was loved by Luke. She was the mistress of his comfortable household and her big stepson had said he was glad she was there. For three weeks he had sulked in sullen silence. But now—since morning—he had not only permitted her to make up to him, he spent his leisure doing errands for her, or displaying his huge strength for her entertainment.
Artie laughed in his deep baritone. He was at peace again with his beloved father; his new stepmother was not the ogre he had pictured her before he looked at her. She was pretty. She was obliging, and after all she was only a kid, grateful for any little kindness shown her.
“See, Dumplin,” Luke gloried, “didn’t Ah say Artie’d be all right t’reckly? Yas, mah boy is awful ’fectionate. He wouldn’t hurt a flea—he kain’t stay ’way f’um his pappy.”
Vangie patted Luke’s hand, and scolded him prettily.
“It’s yo’ fault, Honey. You kept callin’ Artie ‘yo baby’ an’ Ah thought he wuz a lil’ teeny baby chile. Ah never knowed he wuz bigger’n a house. No grown body don’t want no step mama. If he wuz a lil’ boy Ah figgered Ah’d teach him to love me like he wuz mine.”
“Don’t mind him,” Artie said, “he always calls me ‘baby.’ Heah Ah is de stronges’ man in de country—ain’t let nobody th’ow me in a rassle since Ah wuz sixteen—but Ah’m all he’s got—Ah mean till you came.”
“Kah! Kah!” Luke laughed boisterously. “Ef Ah had a’ tol’ you Ah had a son twenty-two, you would A’ thought Ah wuz ole—Dat Artie boy, he’s jealous uh me, dat’s whut—we been heah by ourselves since he wuz nine.”
“Yeah,” Artie added—“It sho’ made me good and mad to think we been gettin’ ’long all dese years, den w’en Pop gets ’round sixty he got to jump up and get married.”
“Ain’t but fifty-eight,” Luke threw in hastily.
“Whut’s the difference? But Ah ain’t mad uh nothin’ no mo’. If youse happy Ah is. Vangie is a good girl an’ Ah’ll do all Ah kin to make it nice for her. Ah’m glad not to be foolin’ wid the cookin’. Ah got mo’ appetite already.”
II
Artie did make things nice for Vangie. There was always plenty of stove wood in the wood box and water in the two brass bound pails. He “grubbed” potatoes for her, churned for her, took her fishing with him and even let her go hunting with him when he discovered her enthusiasm for dogs in general, and his pair of “redbone” hounds in particular.
May was burned to June beneath the Florida sun. Berries hung plump and green in clusters among the lacy China-berry trees. The woods were full of color and odors.
June for Luke, for Artie, for Vangie—June in the world.
But Luke was not so happy as he had been. Not that he was jealous—he hated himself at the very thought of such a passion—but Artie and Vangie did seem to have a great deal to talk about in which he had no part. They could enjoy themselves for hours together and did not remember he was alone. Artie never seemed to go out “sparking” on girls anymore—he was forever calling Vangie or she was forever calling him.
Sometimes his great love for the two “young ’uns” would overflow and wash all baser passions from his soul. Then he would assure himself that all was well. He had prayed for peace and harmony between these two, and God had heard him.
“Youse mah wife,” Luke said to her one day at the table and closed his gnarled black hand upon her brown one. This was as near as he ever came to betraying the sore on his heart. Artie looked quickly at his father, searchingly. Vangie did not return the caress, but neither did she draw her hand away. So Luke was satisfied.
“Artie baby, don’t think cause Ah married, dat you kain’t git yo’ shear. Youse haff an’ haff partners wid me on dis truckin’ farm—you kin take over yoh twenty acres whenever you gits ready, an’ git married when so evah you please. Pinkie Turk wuz jes’ axin ’bout you.”
“Thank you, Pop, but Ah reckon the place can stay together lak it tis. No hurry a-tall—Ah ain’t in no hurry to jump over de broom-stick wid nobody.”
During supper that night the dogs were rather noisy—moonless black night with the alligators booming from Lake Belle whip-poor-will crying in the orange grove—
“Past-Ned old boy, put ’im up!” Artie called out to his “tree” hound. “Go git ’im Beulah,” to his “strike.” To Vangie he explained: “Them dogs knows it’s a good hunting night—b’leeve Ah’ll air ’e mout if Ah kin git Pop to go ’long.”
“Nope, son. Pop’s too tired. Git Dan Carter to go wid you.”
“Oh, lemme go wid you, Artie,” Vangie begged. “Ah ain’t never been in mah life.”
“Sure you kin, Vangie.”
“Naw, Dumplin’, you better not,” Luke objected quickly. “You mought git snake-bit.”
“Shucks, she kin wear yo’ boots,” Artie put in.
“Oh, Ah wants to go!” wailed the girl.
“But Honey,” Luke contended, “dey mought flush a catamount.”
“Aw, we ain’t goin’ in a hammock,” Artie retorted. So Luke, having offered every objection but the real one, gave in.
“You reckon any boogers goin ter git me, Artie? You sho you kin take keer uh me?” she appealed.
“Sho’ Ah kin take keer uh you, Vangie, and Ah wouldn’t leave you go if Ah couldn’t.”
So Vangie drew on her husband’s boots and followed Artie into the black woods.
Luke crept to bed alone with the dish-rag under his pillow—for that is a powerful charm to keep the marriage bed inviolate.
He heard the deep voices of the hounds “treeing” far away. The late moon hung low and red when the two others returned tired but happy. But Luke could never hear a baying hound again nor look at a low, full moon without that painful heart-contraction he had felt that night in the vastness of his bed alone while his wife strode thru the dark woods, depending upon, looking to someone other than himself, for protection.
By eight o’clock next morning he trod the village road to End-Or. He hurried to the gate of Ned Bickerstaff to get a “hand.”
“Does you want dis han’ for hate, for to make money come to yuh, for to put yo’ enemy on his back, or to keep trouble fum yo’ do’?” the old male witch asked.
“Ah—Ah jes’ wants to fix it so’s nobody kain’t git ’tween me and Vangie.”
“Does you want him daid, or crippled up fuh life, uh jes’ fixed so he kain’t stay heah?”
“None of ’em. There ain’t no man—now. Ah jes’ wants to [be] sure there never ben one.”
Bickerstaff made him a small parcel sewed up in red flannel and received ten dollars in return.
“Take dis, Luke Mimms. Long as you got dis, nobody can’t never cross you. Wait till sundown, sprinkle wid a drop or two of water and nobody kin git twixt you ’thout water gittin’ him. But don’t sprinkle it tell youse sho’ you wants somethin’ done, cause it’s bound to come after de sprinklin’. And don’t never take it off once you put it [on] else it will work the other way.”
Luke hurried home to his fields and toiled vigorously all day beside his big brown boy. Like the roots his hands were gnarled; like the soil his skin was brownish black. Dirt of the dirt he appeared to the observer. But like the moist black earth he worked, he held within everything of good and evil. He watched Artie from the corner of his wrinkled eyelids. How he hated that big form that threw its shadow between Vangie and him! How he loved his dear boy, his baby now grown to such splendid manhood! Aha! In his pocket was the little red bag that by its magic made their years equal and enlarged his shrunken old form to that of Artie, the brute magnificent. The dull brown earth-clod was alive and warm with the fire of love and hate. So he sang in his quivering
voice:
“There’s a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole,
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sinsick soul.”
He trusted to his “hand” and grew cheerful again.
“Artie, les’ we all knock off now. Hit’s mighty hot an’ de bear’s bout to git me. Les’ put some ’millons tuh cool and drive in to town.”
“What fur? Oh, all right, Pop, Ah’ll go feed de hauses and change up a bit. You g’wan git dressed—Ah’ll hitch up whilst you puts de melons in de spring house.”
Vangie waved them off cheerfully and went on with her work.
On the road they laughed, told jokes, commented on timber and crops, fertilizer and stock, laughed and joked some more and finally arrived at Orlando.
Then Luke revealed the object of his trip. He wanted to buy things for Vangie. “Artie, she kin have everything to make a ’oman proud.” He stopped, embarrassed, for a moment. “You an’ her is the same in mah heart. You know Ah allus tried to give you what yo’ lil heart wanted. Ah allus ast Gawd to fit it so’s Ah could. To yo’ dyin’ day Ah wants it to be so. An’ now, wid her it’s the same. You—you doan’ mind, do you Artie boy?”
There was a childish, almost pathetic look in his eyes as he looked up into his son’s face, and Artie felt a disturbance in his breast. He put one arm quickly about his father’s shoulder, then drew it away and roughly tied the horse to the great oak tree.
“Oh, course Papa. Ah wants you to do for Vangie whutever you so desired. You been a good papa to me. Ah wants you to be jes’ as happy as a king. Whut you got in yo’ mind to buy her?”
They advanced to the door of the store.
“Well, Ah thought Ah’d buy her a new churn, a store broom, and bolt uh new calliker.”
“You reckon she wants dat?” Artie asked skeptically.
“Sho! All women-folks do. Ah uster give yo’ ma a bolt uh calliker ev’ry Chris-mas.”
He shopped eagerly, giggling like a schoolgirl. Artie shopped also, but his purchase was made without any flourish in another part of the store, and Luke in his excitement asked no questions.
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick Page 15