Precious Bones (9 page)

We finished our RCs. I took the bottles back inside and set them on the countertop. “Thank you again, Miss Evelyn.”

“You’re very welcome, Bones.”

I went outside and said, “I best be getting back home, Mr. Speed. I’ll stop by again real soon. You have a good day.”

“See you later.”

On my walk home I kept looking at my finger and the knuckle that Mr. Speed said we lived on.

Tuesday afternoon, Nolay returned home with one of the biggest surprises of my life. One that made me clear forget about Yankees, legs, knuckles, and knives. Me and Mama were outside working in her garden when the dogs began to bark. Pulling up in our driveway was the most astonishing vehicle I had ever seen. Its heavy body sat low to the ground. The back was squared off, and the front was pointed like a shark’s nose. It was the color of ripe limes. Gleaming strips of chrome ran down the sides and sparkled in the sunshine. The convertible top was down. and Nolay sat behind the steering wheel.

Me and Mama, along with the dogs, approached cautiously, as if the car were a rattlesnake coiled to strike. Silver let out a low growl; the hair along her back stood up like porcupine’s guills. Nolay laughed out loud and blew the horn. “Y’all come on over here. It ain’t gonna bite ya.”

Me and the dogs broke into a run to see who would get there first. I began to circle the car, running my hands over
the smooth hot metal. The dogs sniffed the huge whitewall tires and wagged their tails. Perched on top of the hood was a shiny chrome angel poised in flight, its wings spread. I came around to the driver’s door and asked, “Nolay, what is this?”

“It’s a 1949 Studebaker Champion, one of the finest vehicles ever put on a road.”

“Is it ours? Can we keep it?”

“It’s ours. We don’t own it, but we’re sure as heck gonna keep it.”

Mama stood with her hands on her hips, her eyes drinking in the vision in front of her. She shook her head. “Nolay, where on earth did you get such a thing? And where is our truck?”

“The truck is up at the Fish House. Ironhead’s gonna drive it down tomorrow. Don’t worry about where this car came from; just get in so we can go for a ride.”

Mama continued to stand and stare. “Nolay, we cannot have something like this. What will people say? What will people think?”

“I don’t give a hoot what they think or say. They’ll probably wish they had one, too. Now y’all jump on in here and let me take ya for a spin.”

Mama rubbed her hands over her garden-soiled shirt and said, “Well, I cannot get in that car and go for a ride looking the way I do.”

“Then, Honey Girl, go get yourself gussied up so we can go for a ride. How ’bout you, Bones, you ready?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Now, be careful when you open the door, don’t let them dang dogs in. They can ride in the truck, but they ain’t welcome in here.”

I pulled open the heavy door and slid in across the slick green woven seat. I could feel the warmth of the sun-baked material seep through my dungarees. The back of the seat burned my thin T-shirt.

Nolay lifted me onto his lap and let me grab the massive steering wheel; I pulled the headlight switch off and on, blew the thunderous horn, and flicked the spotlight back and forth in different directions. Silver jumped around and howled at the sound of the horn. The Champion was full of power and wonder.

Mama came out dressed in clean slacks, a bright blue scarf wrapped around her head and tied neatly under her chin. She slipped in quietly beside me, looked across at Nolay, and said, “Well, let’s go out and give everybody something to talk about.”

“Mama, ain’t this just the finest thing you ever did see?”

Mama looked over at me. Her face was serious, but her eyes were filled with joy. “It is a thing of beauty.”

I turned to Nolay and asked, “Can we go out and visit Little Man? I bet he’s never seen anything like this before.”

“I reckon that’s a good place to start,” Nolay said. “What do you think, Honey Girl?”

“Fine by me. I’ve been meaning to go out and see Miss Melba’s new gas stove.”

Nolay turned the key, and the Champion’s engine sprang to life. He glided the car gently over our deep-rutted driveway,
turned left on the county’s dull yellow marl road, and headed to Little Man’s house.

Soon as we pulled into his yard, we were welcomed by an assortment of hunting dogs. The weathered wooden house sat like a sideways matchbox on stilts about three feet above the ground. At both ends of the house was a single door, so there was no front or back entrance.

Little Man and his daddy, Mr. Cotton, were on the side of the house, starting a fire under a huge black pot. When they saw us, they walked toward the car. Mr. Cotton had the same bird’s nest of hair as Little Man, only his was white. He came up to the driver’s side, and his tanned face crinkled into a smile as he said, “Whoo-ee, Nolay, you done outdone yourself. That is one fine-lookin’ mo-chine.”

Little Man’s eyes sat in his round face like shiny moon pies as he stared in disbelief. That familiar question mark started wiggling up between his eyebrows. Little Man’s mama, Miss Melba, walked down the steps, wiping her hands on one of her ever-present flour-sack aprons. Her plump face and arms were covered with brown freckles. Miss Melba was like a second mama to me. I spent nearly as much time out here as I did at home. Sometimes she would run her hands over my hair and say, “Bones, your hair is the perfect color of sweet-corn tassels, it’s just lovely.” Normally I would not be real happy about someone calling my hair corn tassels, but the way Miss Melba said it, it made me feel good.

Miss Melba came up to Mama’s side of the car and said, “Oh, my goodness. Why, Lori, I have never seen anything like this before.”

“Melba, I just never know what Nolay will bring home next. And I hear you have a new gas stove. I would love to see it.”

“Y’all get out and come inside for a spell. I’m just finishing up some jars of guava jelly.”

Me and Mama followed Miss Melba toward the house while Nolay showed Mr. Cotton and Little Man all the wonders of the Champion.

Inside, the house smelled of old wood and sweet, ripe guavas. A huge wooden table sat in the middle of the room. On one side of the room was Mr. Cotton and Miss Melba’s bed; on the other side were three beds where Little Man and his two older brothers, Earl and Ethan, slept. Above the wooden table, hanging from the high ceiling on a long wire, dangled a single lightbulb.

Me and Little Man had spent more nights than I could count curled up on the floor in a thick pile of quilts and feather pillows. In the dim room, we would lie in our beds and listen to the soothing voice of Miss Melba as she read from the Bible, or to Mr. Cotton telling stories of his childhood in the swamps when they were wild and untamed.

At the far end of the house, the kitchen area consisted of a long, rough-hewn countertop, a deep sink with a hand water pump, and an assortment of pots, pans, and cast-iron skillets hanging along the wall. By the open door, where the hulking wood-burning stove once stood, sat a shiny white enamel gas stove.

Mama stood in front of it with her hands on her hips.
“Melba, this is so beautiful, and it must be a treat for you not to have to haul firewood anymore.”

A light flush of pink crept up between the brown freckles on Miss Melba’s face. She ran her hand gently across the stove’s glossy surface. “I sure am proud to have this. It has been a pure luxury not having to chop and tote firewood. The good Lord provides all we need and more.” Mama and Miss Melba gazed at the white enamel stove as though it were a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

As the two women stood admiring the new stove, I asked, “Mama, can I go out and see if Little Man can come for a ride with us?”

“Of course you can.”

Outside, the Champion’s hood was open like a giant mouth. Nolay stood on one side; Mr. Cotton, Little Man, Earl, and Ethan were on the other side admiring the powerful engine.

As I walked up, I heard Mr. Cotton telling Nolay, “Yesterday Jakey Toms stopped by. Said Sheriff LeRoy hired him and his hound dogs to go lookin’ for that Yankee’s body.”

Nolay said, “Sure don’t make sense why that man would have been out there.”

Mr. Cotton shook his head. “Wadn’t they the same ones that came out your way and y’all had a little run-in with?”

“If it was the same two, me and Bones saw ’em the next day out on back of my property with the Reems brothers.”

“The Reems? What was those scallywags doin’ out on your property?”

“No idea, but I can pretty much guarantee they wadn’t up to much good.”

I looked up at Mr. Cotton and said, “Can Little Man come for a ride with us? We’ll bring him back shortly.”

“I think that would be all right,” Mr. Cotton said. “Ethan and Earl can help me with the chickens.” He placed a thick-callused hand on my head. “Bones, I haven’t seen you around for a while. How’s all them critters of yours? You still got that raccoon?”

“Yes, sir, but just like you said, she’s starting to try to run away at night. I tried to get Nolay to build a cage for her, but he said if she wants to go back to the wild it’s her choice.”

“Well, that’s right, she is a wild creature and you don’t want to go cagin’ something up. I told you when I gave ’er to you that she’d steal your heart and run away with it.” He reached into his top shirt pocket, pulled out a packet of loose tobacco, and began spilling it into a sheer rolling paper cradled between his index finger and thumb. “And how’s that old pig of yours? That dang thing still sleeping in bed with you?”

“Yes, sir, often as she can.”

“I swear, Bones, you got such a way with animals, I think you could take a durn ol’ panther and turn it into a house cat.”

“I’d sure like to try that. If you ever run across a baby one, you bring it to me.”

He placed the perfectly round white cylinder of tobacco in his mouth, lit it, inhaled deeply, and released a thick thread of smoke into the air. “I’ll sure keep that in mind.”

Nolay looked at me and said, “Bones, you best go get your mama before she talks till dark.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nolay and Mama settled in the front seat and me and Little Man jumped in the back. Nolay pulled out from Little Man’s house, turned right, and headed for the Last Chance and U.S. 1. The Champion’s powerful engine purred loudly, its heavy body hunkered low on the hard-topped marl road. A dirty-yellow smoke signal of dust followed along behind us.

At the Last Chance, Nolay idled the engine for a minute. Several men came out front to have a look at what the commotion was. Peckerhead Willy glared in our direction and spat out a long stream of tobacco juice. Me and Little Man waved both our hands at Mr. Speed. He slowly raised one hand in recognition.

Nolay waited so everyone could take in the sight before he maneuvered the Champion out onto the blacktop. He hit the gas pedal, and the huge tires squealed out over the hot pavement. The Champion, with all its power and wonder, roared down the highway.

We drove all the way to Melbourne and back. Along the way, if Nolay saw anyone standing outside, he would blow the horn and me and Little Man would wave our hands high in the air.

Mama shook her head and said, “Nolay, you are making us a spectacle.”

Nolay grinned. “We ain’t a spectacle, just a sight to behold.”

“Well, I’m sure the sight of you riding around in this car will have plenty of tongues wagging.”

“Let ’em wag.”

By the time we drove back to Little Man’s house, the sun and wind had painted our skin a light crimson. Little Man got out of the car and said, “I sure do thank ya, Mr. Nolay. That was a pure pleasure.”

As we drove away, I twisted around in the backseat and watched Little Man in his yard, a huge grin across his freckled face, his bird’s-nest hair spread out in all directions. We waved to each other until the Champion separated us from sight.

The Champion would take us to places we had never been, and to some places I never wanted to go.

That evening during supper, Nolay announced, “What y’all think about us taking the Champion and going for a ride down to the Tamiami Trail and visit Cat Island?”