Cold Sassy Tree (14 page)

I do believe he forgot all about Miss Love. As we went toward the kitchen, I looked back and saw that Cudn Hope had offered her the green velvet rocker and everybody was sitting down again.

Grandpa, laughing as if the triumph over the train had been as much his as mine, grabbed what was left of a chocolate pie from the dining room table and pushed me through the door into the kitchen. When the door swung to, it shut out everybody in the house but us.

I could hear voices in the parlor, but not what they said, and I could tell that nobody was saying a whole lot. Miss Love must have felt like a cat cornered by a pack of dogs. At the time nobody knew what a cat she could be when cornered. From what I heard tell later, though, she tried to be real nice that night.

While I served out the pie and poured me some sweetmilk from the pitcher on the table, Grandpa slipped into our company room closet for you-know-what. Then, seated across from me at the kitchen table, his face flushed with whiskey and pride, he said, "Tell me about it, son."

And I did. On the davenport in yonder I hadn't even wanted to think about what happened on the trestle, but with Grandpa I didn't feel like that. I told him how I was tired of being in mourning and got mad at Papa and slipped off, how grand it felt up there on the trestle, how awful it was when the engine commenced chasing me. I told him about the cinders hitting my back, the smell of hot creosote, and the huge roar as the train straddled the rails above me. "I felt like somebody was stabbing my eardrums. It was like I'd gone crazy, Grandpa. Like I was drownin' in sound."

Grandpa heard me out, his blue eyes intent. I even told him about "this mill girl I know at school" who was picking blackberries near the trestle and helped me off the tracks. "And you should of seen ole Loomis, Grandpa, sprintin' onto the trestle to get the dog. Loomis knew another train was comin', and went and got him anyhow!...Grandpa, uh, I cain't eat my pie." Couldn't even stand to look at it. Pushed it away, and the milk, too. But Grandpa didn't notice.

I knew he was real excited, because he kept scratching his head fast. But he didn't act like I'd been snatched from hell or go on about a maggotty horse hoof on the railroad tracks or how I had to pray God to use the life He had so mercifully spared. Grandpa reached across the table and put his hand on my arm, just for a second, then poked me in the ribs and said, "By George, gittin' ran over by a train must a-been some experience!" He acted like it was something to remember instead of something to forget.

With the way he took it so casual, and the relief of getting it told, I felt like I'd been stuck back together. But one thing worried me. "Grandpa, you think I'm alive tonight cause it was God's will?"

"Naw, you livin' cause you had the good sense to fall down 'twixt them tracks."

"Maybe God gave me the idea."

"You can believe thet, son, if'n you think it was God's idea for you to be up on thet there trestle in the first place. What God give you was a brain. Hit's His will for you to use it—p'tickler when a train's comin'."

Resting my chin in my hand, I thought about that while Grandpa finished up his pie. I felt awful tired. "Sir, do you think it was God's will for Bluford Jackson to get lockjaw and die?"

Grandpa spoke kindly. "The Lord don't make firecrackers, son. Hit's jest too bad pore Blu didn't be more careful when he was shootin'm off."

"You don't think God wills any of the things that happen to us?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?"

"Mama and Papa think He does."

Grandpa licked some meringue off his fork while he pondered. Finally he said, "Life bullies us, son, but God don't. He had good reasons for fixin' it where if'n you git too sick or too hurt to live, why, you can die, same as a sick chicken. I've knowed a few really sick chickens to git well, and lots a-folks git well thet nobody ever thought to see out a-bed agin cept in a coffin. Still and all, com mon sense tells you this much: everwhat makes a wheel run over a track will make it run over a boy if'n he's in the way. If'n you'd a-got kilt, it'd mean you jest didn't move fast enough, like a rabbit that gits caught by a hound dog. You think God favors the dog over the rabbit, son?"

I shook my head.

"I don't neither. When it comes to prayin', we got it all over the other animals, but we ain't no different when it comes to livin' and dyin'. If'n you give God the credit when somebody don't die, you go'n blame Him when they do die? Call it His will? Ever noticed we git well all the time and don't die but once't? Thet has to mean God always wants us to live if'n we can. Hit ain't never His
will
for us to die—cept in the big sense. In the sense He was smart enough not to make life eternal on this here earth, with people and bees and elephants and dogs piled up in squirmin' mounds like Loma's dang cats tryin' to keep warm in the wintertime. Does all this make any sense, Will Tweedy?"

"Yessir, Grandpa." I wanted to go lay down. But I also wanted some more answers. "Grandpa, uh, why you think Jesus said ast the Lord for anything you want and you'll get it? 'Ast and it shall be given,' the Bible says. But it ain't so." I felt blasphemous even to think it, much less say it out loud.

Grandpa was silent a long time. "Maybe Jesus was talkin' in His sleep, son, or folks heard Him wrong. Or maybe them disciples tryin' to start a church thought everbody would join up if'n they said Jesus Christ would give the Garden a-Eden to anybody believed He was the son a-God and like thet." Grandpa laughed. Gosh, I'd get a whipping if Papa knew what was going on with the Word in his kitchen. "All I know," he added, "is thet folks pray for food and still go hungry, and Adam and Eve ain't in thet garden a-theirs no more, and yore granny ain't in hers, and I ain't got no son a-my own to carry on the name and hep me run the store when I'm old. Like you say, you don't git thangs jest by astin'. Well, I'm a-go'n study on this some more. Jesus must a-meant something else, not what it sounds like."

"Grandpa, I think maybe I better go back in yonder and lay down."

"Yeah, you better. But I got one more thang to say. They's a heap more to God's will than death, disappoint-ment, and like thet. Hit's God's will for us to be good and do good, love one another, be forgivin'...." He laughed. "I reckon I ain't very forgivin', son. I can forgive a fool, but I ain't inner-rested in coddlin' hypocrites. Well anyhow, folks who think God's will jest has to do with sufferin' and dyin', they done missed the whole point."

I stood up, weaving a little. That brought Grandpa out of his sermon. "Gosh a'mighty, pore Miss Love! You reckon they've et her up alive in there?" He leaped to his feet and burst through the swinging door to the dining room.

We got back to the parlor just in time to hear my daddy, in a strained and formal voice, making polite conversation by telling Mrs. Love Simpson Blakeslee what was coming along in our garden in the way of vegetables.

You could tell that Miss Love and Papa both were mighty glad to see Grandpa. Everybody else was, too. It's not easy to keep up a conversation with somebody you'd rather not even be speaking to.

Miss Love stood up and moved toward us, and all the men rose, polite but stiff.

"Well, folks," said Grandpa, taking aholt of her elbow, "I reckon we best mosey on home now. Hit's been a long fancy day."

Miss Love looked at me. "How are you feeling now, Will?"

"Pretty good, ma'am."

"Fore we go," said Grandpa, "I'd like all y'all to join me and my wife in a word a-prayer."

You can't hardly refuse a man that.

In stony silence they all bowed their heads, where they stood or sat. With his right arm around Miss Love and his left arm stub laid across my shoulder and me facing the two of them, Grandpa prayed.

I didn't close my eyes. I was too busy watching faces—Mama's and Papa's and Aunt Loma's and, of course, Miss Love's. Clasping her hands together, she closed those gray-blue eyes and ducked her head down and all I could see then was the big mass of wavy brown hair and the little blue hat. I noticed for the first time that her hair had a lot of gray sprinkled through it.

After what Grandpa had been saying to me in the kitchen, I should of been prepared for what he said to God in the parlor: "Lord above, afore this gatherin' assembled, I ast You to bless the memory of Miss Mattie Lou."

Everybody gasped. Nobody expected him to bring
her
up.

Grandpa didn't seem to hear the gasps. "Please God, forgive me all the ways I ain't done right by her. Thou knowest what she meant to me and our chi'ren, Mary Willis and Loma," he continued, "and to Will Tweedy and li'l Mary Toy." There was a pause, his face working like he might not could go on, but he did. "And now I ast yore blessin' on this here girl I married today." Miss Love raised her head and stared up at Grandpa, mouth agape. I do think his were the only eyes in the room still shut. "Lord, hep me be good to her. You know I need Miss Love. Hep her to need me likewise. And give her the grace to unner-stand thet if'n they's aught to respect in me, it's because a-thet one in the grave out yonder, what all she learnt me."

Tears were flowing down Miss Love's cheeks. I never before saw anything so beautiful as the way she reached up and put her left hand over the big bony hand that clasped her right shoulder. Grandpa opened his eyes then and looked a long time into hers—till finally, like he'd just remembered God and the other people in the room, he bowed his head again. "And last, bless my daughters and their fam'lies. Specially Will Tweedy, who as You know didn't git kilt today. We're mighty proud to still have him." His voice broke. My own throat swelled and ached. Even with all Grandpa had said in the kitchen, I half expected him to thank God for sparing me, but he didn't. Somebody in the room started sniffling. I couldn't tell who, but I knew it wasn't Aunt Loma.

Grandpa had made the Lord seem so real, I wouldn't of been surprised if he'd said good night to Him. But after a long pause he just said a-men.

It was a strange thing happened then. My mama went up to her pa and kissed him and, crying, hugged Miss Love, who, crying, hugged her back. My daddy kissed Miss Love on the cheek and then shook hands with Grandpa. Uncle Camp naturally did the same thing. So did Mr. French Gordy, Granny's stepbrother. After that all the friends and neighbors filed by—it was still more like a funeral than a wedding party—and shook hands with Grandpa, and either hugged Miss Love or clasped her hand.

I saw Mama whispering to Aunt Loma. Mama believed you had to be nice even to a rat if it was a guest in your home. But Loma shook her off and stalked past Miss Love and Grandpa to ioi join Uncle Camp, who had taken Campbell Junior out on the porch. She didn't even make a polite show of wishing them well. Didn't say good night, even. But I couldn't tell that Grandpa noticed or cared.

In the back of my mind I'd been thinking I had saved him and Miss Love from the gossipers. I mean I figured everybody would be talking about me getting run over by the train instead of about them eloping. That just shows how swell-headed I was, and how I underestimated Grandpa. If I had deliberately planned on nearly getting myself killed just to help him out, it would of been a waste of time.

Grandpa was equal to anything.

T
HAT NIGHT
in a dream I stood on the tracks at the edge of Blind Tillie Trestle. Lightfoot McLendon was way out at the middle, over the deepest part of the gorge. Her hair, white-gold in the sunlight, hung loose down to her hips. She looked like a doll out there, and her voice echoed as she kept calling my name. "Come on, Will! It's so pretty up here?...Don't be skeerdy!" I put one foot on the trestle, then pulled back. "Will?" she called. "Will?" Then, oh gosh, she unbuttoned her shirtwaist, let it drop to the rail, and stretched her arms toward the sky. "Come on, Will," she teased, and went to swaying.

Later, remembering the dream, I thought about a porcelain lady with no head or arms that I saw one time in a shop in Atlanta. All she had on was a cloth, draped around her hips, and I could hardly take my eyes off of her. In the dream I could hardly take my eyes off of Lightfoot, swaying out there on the trestle. Then I saw the train loom up behind her. It made no sound, and Lightfoot didn't see it coming. I tried to yell, but like the train I had no voice. I wanted to save her, but my legs wouldn't move.

Swaying her hips, she all of a sudden dropped her skirt and was stepping out of it when the engine hit and exploded her into a thousand pieces. They fell in a slow shower to the creek below.

She shattered without any blood, as if she'd died without ever living.

I screamed....

"Will! What's the matter, sugar?" Mama was shaking me awake.

I told her I dreamed the train hit somebody. I didn't say it was a naked mill girl.

I had another nightmare that night. I was running for my life, the train nipping at my heels, but I was winning the race! The end of the trestle was only a few feet away, and I was like a wind-up tin man with four legs spinning. This time, boy howdy, I was go'n make it! Then Loma appeared on the trestle, barring my way, flapping her arms at me like a farm wife trying to keep a goat out of the garden. "Move!" I shouted. "Get out a-my way!"

"Call me Aint Loma and I'll let you by!" she yelled in a high, child voice.

"I won't! Move!"

"Say Aint Loma!" With every flap of her arms, her body swelled, till she and the train were the same size, and me caught between.

"You ain't my aunt!
MOVE!
"

Struggling out of the dream, I heard myself babbling sounds that made no sense. Gosh a'mighty, if only I'd had time to grab Loma and push her off into the gorge or under the train wheels! I was so mad it took me a minute to see that I was safe and alone in my room at home. In the next instant, a time out of my childhood flashed before me: the day Loma turned twelve. It put light on what had long been a dark puzzlement.

Up till that birthday we were like a sister and a little brother. She'd get mad and hit me if I crossed her or sassed her, and I'd do meany things to her, like tripping her up or putting sugar in her salt cellar. Still and all, we got along about like you'd expect till, on the day she was twelve (I was just six), she ordered me in a growny tone to start calling her Aint Loma. "Say it. Call me Aint Loma." She raised her fist over my head.