Precious Bones (2 page)

Mama refused to get off the couch, even after Nolay offered her a piggyback ride. She hugged her legs close to her body and kept her chin on her knees. She was not about to stick her feet in that dirty brown water. Just as Mama turned her head sideways, a little black snake wriggled along the side of the wall. She pointed and said, “My goodness, what is that? Is that a snake inside our house?”

I quickly waded over to it. “It’s only a baby. It’s scared and it’s just trying to find its way back outside.”

Mama groaned. “And I want it to go back outside.” She looked at Nolay. “What else has the womb of the world dumped inside our house?”

“Lori, that’s just a little ol’ baby, it squeezed in through a crack. Don’t worry; they ain’t nothing in here but some harmless water.”

I crept behind the couch and gingerly picked the snake up by its slippery little tail. I turned to Mama and said, “Look, Mama, it ain’t much bigger than a fat old fishin’ worm. It’s
probably one of Old Blackie’s babies. I’ll just take it outside where it belongs.” Blackie was our resident blacksnake. She lived in the giant mango tree in our backyard.

Armed with Crisco cans and mason jars, I was ready to go outside and catch the bounty of tadpoles, minnows, and whatever else the swamp had spilled out on our driveway. Or what we called our driveway; it was actually a two-rut dirt road with ditches cut in on both sides. After every big summer rain I took it on myself to go out and catch as many living things as I could and dump them into the pond in our front yard. Of course, a fair amount of the creatures I would be picking up that day came from the pond in our front yard, but I felt it was my duty to save as many as I could.

With a great display of authority I dropped the pathetic little snake in my Crisco can and made my way to the front door. I whistled, and our three dogs, Nippy the raccoon, and Pearl the pig almost knocked me down as they clambered toward the door. Harry the goat had made himself quite comfortable in the washtub, his head hung over the rim and his big glassy eyes looking forlornly in my direction.

I strapped my trusty Roy Rogers cap pistols around my waist and opened the front door. I was getting too old to still be playing with cap pistols, but they just felt like a couple of friends hanging out with me. Nolay called out, “Bones, you watch out for snakes. Take a hoe or machete with you. They bound to be lookin’ for dry land. And keep your eye on those dang dogs; the fools will stick their nose right on top of a snake.”

“Yes, sir, Nolay, I’ll look out for ’em.”

Outside, the road was spotted with mud puddles full of minnows and tadpoles. Barefooted, I waded very gingerly through the brown water, just in case there was a snake laying around. The thirsty Florida sun had already begun to suck up huge amounts of precious water. As the puddles dried, the helpless little creatures were left to die a slow death in the heat.

I found the perfect spot and started building sand dams to reroute the water and trap the critters. Nippy ran happily from puddle to puddle and snatched up minnows and tadpoles. She would squat down on her haunches and with her little humanlike hands devour the critters like pieces of candy. I knew I couldn’t interfere. Nolay had told me, “That’s the way God set up nature; one day you’re sittin’ at the dinner table and the next day you might be on it.”

Pearl dug a mudhole by some twisted palmetto roots and the dogs romped through the tangled scrub pines. I had nearly filled a whole Crisco can with squirmy things ready to be set loose in our big front pond, when I heard a gunshot ring out from the direction of our house.

I turned and ran as fast as I could back to the house. The dogs followed in hot pursuit. One of the dogs, Paddlefoot, smashed through my dams and sent cans and jars full of saved creatures wriggling out over the dry sand.

Breathlessly, I opened the door and stepped inside our living room. Mama stood on top of the couch, her little pearl-handled .32 revolver in her hand. Nolay was in front of her, a dead cottonmouth moccasin laying on the floor between them. He picked it up and held it by its tail. Part of the snake’s
body still curled on the floor; a trickle of blood flowed from its head and swirled out into the glossy brown water.

Nolay looked the body up and down and calmly said, “Well, I got to admit, that is a mighty big snake. Bigger than me, gotta be over six feet.”

Mama stood still as a stone on the couch, the pistol pointed in the direction of the snake and Nolay.

Nolay said, “Honey Girl, you are one dead-eyed shot. Look at this, right through the head.” He cleared his throat. “You might want to put that gun down. This snake cain’t get no more deader than it is right now.”

Mama moved her eyes from the snake to the gun; a look of puzzlement crossed her face. She slowly sat back down on the couch and placed the gun by her side.

Nolay glanced at me, then back to Mama. “I tell you what, Honey Girl, I’ll go bring ol’ Ikibob inside the house. I guarantee if there’s any snakes left in here, he’ll hunt ’em down. If there’s one thing that ol’ rooster don’t like, it’s a snake.” He turned and walked out of the house, dragging the dead snake behind him. “Bones, you stay here with your mama.”

I looked at Mama curled up on the couch. “Mama, if it’s all right, I gotta get back outside. Paddlefoot knocked over all my cans and everything is out there drying up to death.”

Mama stared at the hole in the floor where the bullet had dug in. “You go on back, Bones, I’ll be just fine.”

Mama may have come from the red-dirt farmlands of Georgia, but when her and Nolay settled down in the swamps, Nolay made sure she knew how to use a gun. Everyone in
these parts had guns in their houses. They were for hunting and protection, not for hurting anything.

Outside, the animals were waiting on me. They followed me back down the road. Both Nippy and Pearl began to gobble up the helpless tadpoles and minnows flopping on the dry sand. I grabbed my Crisco can and tried to outrace them to the little bodies.

By noon dinnertime, the sun had lapped up the last drops of water. I had saved everything I could. I whistled, signaling the animals it was time to go home. The three dogs—Silver, Paddlefoot, and Mr. Jones—ran past me and bolted up the sandy road. Silver and Mr. Jones skirted around the muddy holes, but Paddlefoot ran right through them, splashing muddy water all over hisself and anything else close by.

Paddlefoot wasn’t the brightest of the dogs, but he was one of the most lovable. He was golden Labrador and maybe Great Dane. His feet were nearly as big as his head. Nolay had saved him from a sure death by his first owner, Jakey Toms. Jakey was a hunter; his yard was filled with an assortment of coon dogs, hog dogs, and rabbit dogs, but no pettin’ dogs. His dogs were for workin’, not lovin’. Jakey said Paddlefoot was too dumb and clumsy to train. He was getting ready to put a bullet in his head when Nolay intervened and brought him home. Paddlefoot wasn’t dumb; he just didn’t want to work. He wanted to be loved.

Nippy and Pearl walked along by my side. Harry the goat was standing out in the yard. When he saw Pearl, he began his stiff-legged dance in our direction. He went directly to
Pearl and placed his little wet nose on Pearl’s snout. Pearl grunted contentedly.

I entered the kitchen with Nippy under one arm and Pearl waddling by my side. Pearl was a gift from Nolay. He came home from a hunting trip with a sackful of smoked pork and a squealing baby pig. When she was young, her skin was as soft as a baby’s. As she matured, wild-pig bristles covered her body like the combed-back spines of a porcupine. When she was a piglet, she had a little box in my room that she slept in, but where she really liked to sleep was in my bed with me. Now that she was grown, she and Harry the goat shared a pen outside. But often as possible, I would quietly hold our front door open and she would sneak in and climb into my bed.

Mama let out a deep sigh. “Bones, take Pearl outside. She’s just too big to come in the house.”

“But Mama, she’s cleaner than the dogs, and you gotta admit she’s very well-mannered.” As if to prove my point, Pearl shuffled up to Mama, sniffed her hand, and grunted in reassurance.

Mama turned to me. “Bones, I don’t know if you have noticed, but Pearl is not a little piglet anymore, she’s a hundred-pound bristleback sow.”

Just then a cockroach the size of a hummingbird flew across the room. It went straight in front of Mama’s face and landed on the wall. I grabbed a rag and knocked it to the floor; in one quick motion, Pearl devoured that cockroach and snorted for more.

“Did you see that, Mama? Not only is she a good pet, she’s useful, too.”

“Good Lord, what next. A houseful of snakes, cockroaches, and a pig.”

“Mama, do you know that there are twenty-seven different kinds of cockroaches in Florida?”

“Bones, where on earth did you hear such a thing?”

“Mr. Speed told me. He said there are really over forty different kinds that live here, but only twenty-seven belong here. I guess the rest of ’em are kinda like Yankees, they just came down for the weather.”

Mama shook her head. “That is depressing news. Bones, do you believe everything Mr. Speed tells you?”

“Mama, I swear, he knows something about nearly everything. It would do you a world of good to sit a spell with Mr. Speed. He has more information in his head than ten of those ol’ cycopedas.”

“I believe it’s called an encyclopedia. And maybe if he knows so much about cockroaches, he can tell me how to get rid of them.”

“Mama, you should just go talk to him sometime. Besides Nolay, Mr. Speed is about the smartest person I ever did meet. Other than Little Man, I consider Mr. Speed my best friend. Not only is he smart, but he’s real nice to be with, too.”

I wasn’t sure why, but Mama turned away from me as a smile started spreading across her face. She said, “I will certainly try to do that.”

I walked back into the living room. The bullet hole in the floor was a small jagged crack filled with shiny dark water. Nolay and Mama had swept nearly all the water out. There were just a couple of shimmering rainbows left where the
water had flowed. As usual, after a few days of sunshine, the musky smell of dampness would disappear.

Mama’s pistol was still sitting on the couch. There would be another time when I would see her holding her little pearl-handled .32. Only, she wouldn’t be shooting at a snake.

Along with the flood, summer’s gentle rains were quickly replenishing the swamp’s precious water, turning last winter’s dry drabness into a rich blend of greens and golds. Two days after that big storm blew in, we were still cleaning up the mess it left in our yard.

It was a hot, soggy afternoon; I was outside with Nolay, swabbing our window screens with DDT to keep the mosquitoes out. The pungent smell of the liquid filled my nose and brought tears to my eyes. I swabbed a patch across a screen and said, “This stuff sure makes pretty rainbows, don’t it, Nolay?” Before he could answer, the dogs started to bark.

We watched as a strange-looking car drove slowly up our bumpy driveway. It was a big, cumbersome thing, so low to the ground that its bumpers dug into the sandy top of the road. It looked like a fat black cat slinking up to our house.

Nolay and I put our DDT rags in a bucket and went to see who these unknown visitors were. I looked back at the house and saw Mama come to our big picture window and peek out
around the curtains. Even Old Ikibob stopped scratching in the dirt and stuck his head up, blinking one eye like an orange caution light.

As the car pulled up to our house, I could make out the silhouettes of two men in the front seat. The man on the passenger side rolled his window down. He leaned his arm on the open window and stuck his head out. “How do, mister. Do those dogs bite?”

Nolay stuck his hands in his pockets and stared straight back into that window. “Only Yankees.”

The man chuckled and brought his arm back inside the window. He continued, “Well, sir, we’re not from around these parts. My name is Decker and this is my partner, Mr. Fowler. We were just out driving in these lovely backwoods and happened on this quaint little road. Decided to see where it led. I take it you are the gentleman of the house?”

Nolay cocked his head a little sideways, like Old Ikibob did when he stalked something, and replied, “If you mean do I own this land, you are correct.”

Fascinated by this unusual car and its passengers, I decided to take a closer look. Accompanied by the dogs, who promptly wet on all the tires, I ran my fingers over the fancy chrome hood ornament. As I walked around the side, the man sitting in the driver’s seat gave me a wordless glance. I went around the back and saw the license plate with Dade County, Florida, as its place of origin. I didn’t pay much attention to what Nolay and the men talked about. But suddenly I heard Nolay yell, “Lori, Honey Girl, bring me my gun.
I’m gonna shoot me a couple of low-down land-grabbin’ Yankees!”

The dogs immediately came to attention. Silver, our half-wolf shepherd, ran around to the open window of the passenger side and lunged in. She grabbed a mouthful of Decker’s shirtsleeve and ripped if off, exposing a gold watch that dangled loosely around his wrist. Decker began to scream and roll up the window.