Precious Bones (21 page)

Mama sat in silence; I felt the air thicken in the cab of the
truck. She looked directly into Whackerstacker’s bloated face and spoke almost in a whisper. “Why, you heartless old dog. You put that poor woman and those poor children out of her own house! They were your brother’s children!”

“Ain’t her house. That there is my family house. My land. Not her’n. Them two girls ain’t no blood of mine. Ain’t my cause to take care of ’em. That’s her blood.”

“You old skunk, that poor woman was married to your brother. She had three children with him and another one on the way. She was slave to him and your mother for all these years. She deserved better; she deserved to stay here for the rest of her life. She deserved to be treated decently.”

“Ain’t none of your bizzness what I do. Now you get off my land before I send my boy here for my shotgun.”

I grabbed Mama’s arm. “Let’s go. Remember what Nolay said.”

Mama slowly and deliberately turned the ignition key; the old truck engine sputtered to life. She put her head out the window and said, “You cockroach-brained slug. One day I will look down from heaven and watch you roasting on a spit.”

She jammed the truck into first gear, shoved down on the accelerator, and did a sliding U-turn out of the desolate yard. I looked back to see Whackerstacker and Fats standing in a cloud of grimy dust.

Mama drove over the bumpy dirt roads so fast I had to hold on with both hands to keep from banging my head on the roof. I kept my mouth shut so if slipped I wouldn’t bite my tongue off.

That night at supper, I finally got up the nerve to ask, “Mama, what did ol’ Whackerstacker mean about the girls not being his blood?”

Mama gave a sly glance in Nolay’s direction. “I guess if you’re old enough to ask the question, you’re old enough to understand.” She took a sip of her ice tea. “Martha and Ruthie are Miss Alvie’s baby sisters. Old Peckerhead Willy met her family one time when he was in South Florida selling moonshine or some such shenanigans. Alvie’s family were dirt-poor migrant farmers.”

Mama stopped and took a deep breath. “Her parents gave—or maybe I should say sold—Alvie, along with her two younger sisters, to Peckerhead. As far as I know, the agreement was that the girls, along with any children Alvie had with Peckerhead, could live in that house for as long as they wanted or needed to.

“Those two little boys, Tim and Tom, and the baby, Teddy, and the one she was about to give birth to were Peckerhead’s children. They were Whackerstacker’s true blood kin.” She shook her head. “And now that heartless old man has sent her and all those poor children back to another dirt hole.”

I stared at Mama in disbelief. “That’s why the girls look so different from the boys. That’s why they were treated so badly.” A picture floated across my mind of Martha and Ruthie standing in the yard with the Reems boys. “They really were cranes living in a pigpen.”

Like a big rock, the full meaning of what Mama had said dropped on top of me. My eyes darted back and forth between
Nolay and Mama. “They sold their own kids? People can’t be sold. You can’t just buy and sell people. Can you?”

Nolay was the first to reply. “It wadn’t that long ago, Bones. Surely you’ve read up on slavery in school. Colored people were passed around like old used-up rags. It shouldn’t of happened then. And it sure shouldn’t be happening now. But I guess in certain ways it does go on.”

“But they sold their own kids. How can anyone do something like that?”

“Desperation. Ignorance. Being so poor you can’t put food on the table. I don’t know, Bones. I ain’t gonna judge nobody else’s actions, no matter how wrong they may seem to be.”

“Why didn’t y’all tell me this before? I would have been nicer to them.” I hung my head. “I could have been nicer to them.”

I looked across the table and met Mama’s soft gaze. “Bones,” she said, “just be nice to everyone. Treat people the way you want to be treated and you’ll never live to regret it.”

That night as I lay in bed, I pictured Martha and Ruthie, the bruises on their legs, the secondhand clothes they wore. The sad, blank look that lived in their eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to erase the pictures. But they wouldn’t go away; they just hovered there in my bedroom.

It was mid-September and already a family of whooping cranes had returned to nest in the swamps. Every evening they flew over our house, their mournful cries announcing the end of the day and the coming of darkness.

Sunday after me and Mama returned from church, I was in the kitchen helping her knead some dough for our supper biscuits. “Mama, right before the sun sets, me and the dogs are going out to see if we can find the whooping cranes. Mr. Speed told me that just when it starts to get dark and they think nobody can see them, they do a magical dance with each other. He said it is just enchanting.”

“Bones, I would rather you didn’t go out in the swamps, especially by yourself.”

“I won’t be by myself; I’ll have the dogs with me. And I’m not going in the swamps, just to the edge where the cranes come and nest. You know Silver won’t let anything happen to me.”

“Well, I guess it’s all right as long as the dogs are with you.
And don’t be too long, get back here before dark. And be real careful. Watch out for snakes.”

“Don’t worry, Mama, I will. And Mama, did you know that Florida has over forty-seven different kinds of snakes?”

“Forty-seven? I’m guessing you heard that from Mr. Speed.”

“Yes, ma’am, I did. He told me that out of all them different kinds of snakes, the smartest one is the cottonmouth moccasin. He said when the babies are born, they have a little yellow tip on their tail and they use it like a fishin’ worm. They wiggle it around and bait bugs and stuff to come close so they can eat ’em. And he said the rattlesnake is the best mama. She goes back to the same nestin’ hole every year to have her babies, and she is a kind and loving mother.”

“He said a rattlesnake is a kind, loving mother?” Mama smiled. “I do wonder where that man gets all his information.”

“Well, sometimes he gets things a little mixed up and I have to listen real hard to try and understand. But I think he always knows what he’s saying, even if we don’t. Me and Little Man think he has a special connection to God.”

“That could be, Bones, that could very well be.”

Right at dusk the three cranes flew over our house. I whistled for the dogs, and we set out on our journey. At first we followed the well-worn path that led to the small landing where Nolay kept the airboat. From there we veered off and followed along the edge of the swamp. On one side were huge stands of
cattails and saw grass; on the other was a field of tangled, twisted scrub palmetto.

The dogs ran ahead and sniffed their way along the trail. Before long we came to a wide stand of cypress trees that grew along the edge of the swamp. The trees stood tall and forlorn, like old forgotten soldiers, their trunks bent and gnarled from a lifetime in swamp water. I knew the cranes nested somewhere in this area.

I stopped to listen for the whooping cranes’ melodious song. All I heard was the wind playing with the dry grass and leaves. That was when I saw Silver crouched down on her haunches, the hairs along her back raised straight up in the air like a rooster’s tail. Paddlefoot and Mr. Jones stood still as statues; the three of them stared straight ahead.

I peered into the misty stand of cypress trees and thought I saw the shadow of something or someone move. From inside the darkness, something stared back at me; it stopped and waited for me to move closer. The air filled with a stale, sour odor. I stood as though my feet were frozen to the ground. The shadow shivered and moved forward. I turned, yelled for the dogs, and began running as fast as I could back toward our house.

Behind me I heard feet thrashing through the dry undergrowth. From the corner of my eye I saw Silver loping protectively by my side. Suddenly Paddlefoot veered in front of me and the two of us tumbled down. I rolled over and fell into a thick tangle of palmetto roots. The razor-sharp palm branches scraped and cut my bare arms.

Silver came to me where I lay on the ground. She faced
behind me, growled, and bared her teeth. Too terrified to look back, I jumped to my feet and raced forward. My heart pounded like a drum inside my chest.

Me and the three dogs hit the yard running. Through the window I could see Mama in the kitchen cooking supper. I ran inside and collapsed at the kitchen table, wide-eyed and breathless.

She turned and looked at me. “Bones, what on earth is wrong with you? My goodness, look at your arms. What happened? I’ll get some kerosene and iodine to put on those cuts.”

Mama left me panting at the kitchen table. She walked back in with a rag dipped in kerosene and a small bottle of iodine. She began to wash my cuts. “Bones, what happened out there?”

“Me and the dogs went out to find the whooping cranes, to watch ’em dance. But I ran into Soap Sally.”

“Soap Sally? Bones, you know very well there is no such thing as Soap Sally.”

“Yes, there is, Mama, I seen her.”

“You saw her.”

“Yes, ma’am, I saw her. She was out there waitin’ on me.”

“No, Bones, I was correcting your English. You did not
seen
her, you
saw
her. But you did not see her. There is no such thing.”

“There is too. I’ve been out to her house before, with you and Nolay.”

“What are you talking about, Bones? Whose house?”

“Miss Eunice’s. There’s something she keeps in that ol’
shed by the side of her house. And it has a strange smell. The same one I’ve smelled out in the swamps when I’ve met up with Soap Sally.”

Mama finished cleaning my cuts, stood up, and leaned against the kitchen counter. She crossed her arms. “That is absolute nonsense. You are ten years old and letting your imagination run away with you. You can’t possibly be talking about Miss Eunice.”

“Mama, I’m telling you there’s something out there! And it’s got the same smell as I’ve smelled out at that house.”

“Bones, that is nonsense. It can’t be Miss Eunice, she’s an old woman. How on earth could she walk from her house all the way out to where you think you saw her?”

“ ’Cause she’s a witch, that’s why. You’ve heard the stories Nolay tells about Soap Sally.”

“Yes, I have. And that is exactly what they are, stories. Bones, for goodness’ sake, do you believe every story your father tells you?”

“Mama, why would Nolay lie to me about such a thing?”

“He’s not lying. It’s just the way he is. He’s just having fun with you. Or at least he thinks he is. I think it’s time for him to set some things straight. Bones, I don’t want you going back out in those woods alone.”

“Do you think she’s after me?”

“No, I do not think Miss Eunice or Soap Sally is after you! There have been two murders in this area. I don’t know who is out there. I don’t want you going out by yourself again. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Monday morning on our bus ride to school I told Little Man about my encounter with Soap Sally. “Me and the dogs were just about ten feet away from her. I swear.”

“I don’t know, Bones. I mean, I’ve heard that story about Sally all my life, too, but I ain’t never seen her.”

“Well, let me ask you this—you’ve been out to Miss Eunice’s house, haven’t you?”

“Course I have. She loves when my mama drops off some of her famous guava jam.”

“You know that ol’ shed next to the house? Have you ever seen anything strange moving around by it, or smelled something funny-like around there?”

Little Man quietly pondered that for a while; then he said, “I might of heard something, and come to think of it, I have smelled something peculiar around that area.”

“See, that’s what I’m sayin’. I think there’s something livin’ inside there. Something that can move around a lot faster than an old woman.”

“Still, I ain’t never seen Soap Sally or an ol’ witch running around.”

“Well, like Nolay says, everyone believes in the devil and nobody has seen him, so why not a witch?”

Little Man rolled his eyes. “Good Lord, Bones. Where do you come up with some of this stuff?”

“Nolay told me. Why would he lie to me?”

When I looked over at Little Man, that question mark was sitting between his eyes.