The Coffin Quilt (8 page)

"Kin are never a burden," Ma reminded her.

"I know," Ro said softly, "but things are disquieted since I'm home, and I have no right to disquiet this family."

Everyone waited for Pa to say something then. But my sister might as well have been speaking in tongues for all the mind Pa paid to her. He wasn't about to break his silence nohow. So Ro packed her things and left the next day for Aunt Betty's in Stringtown. She took the Coffin quilt with her.

"You're the only one who knows about the baby," she told me before she left. "I expect you to keep my secret, long as it can be kept."

I'd die first before I told. I'd let myself be hauled into the woods by Yeller Thing. Didn't she know that?

Things quieted down somewhat after she took her leave. But I missed her sore bad.
Does Ma suspect the real reason?
I wondered. You had to get up awful early in the morning to fool her.

I decided to test her. "I'm so sad Ro had to leave us,"
I said one day while helping out in the kitchen. "Aren't you, Ma?"

We were alone. I'd never say such if Alifair was around. When I was alone with Ma she sometimes said things she wouldn't say around the others. Now she said something I wish I hadn't been privy to.

"You know what we believe, Fanny," she said. "That God predestines all things, good and bad. That the bad is for God's purpose. That it serves some good. All evil brings out the good in people."

I reckon it was right about then that I stopped being a Primitive Baptist, if I ever was one. I didn't see what good could come out of Pa's not talking to my sister, of Ro's having a baby and the father not knowing it, of her having to live with Aunt Betty because she knew her family wouldn't have her under their roof if they knew of it.

I never spoke to Ma about it again. We did our chores, went to school, to church. The colors in the woods deepened. The nights grew cold. Frost covered everything in the mornings. In church one Sunday the preacher said the end was at hand. "We're in the last evening of time," he said. "As far as when the end comes, Scripture tells us 'even the angels in heaven won't know.' But I do believe we're in the evening of time, and we'd all best prepare for it."

They don't fool around in our church. They get right to things. But at least we're not as bad as the people who handle snakes to prove that God is looking out for them. I like to think that we don't need to handle snakes to
prove God loves us. Or stand around getting the jimjams about being consumed in fire. I like to think about God as somebody kind and loving. Somebody who'd like my sister Ro's baby right off. Maybe give it dimples, even though she wasn't married to Johnse Hatfield when she was having it.

Anyways, things seemed to settle down after Ro left Or so I thought. But I soon found different, I soon found that once evil gets into your house, it slithers around there like a cold mist. Sometimes even hides in the corners. But it's there once you let it in and you can't get shut of it.

How did it get in? With that Coffin quilt of Ro's. That quilt smelled of evil. And I think Mrs. Hatfield gave it to Ro so the evil could touch her. And us.

Anyways, evil doesn't he still too long. Any more than a Hoop snake. After a week or two things started happening. Real fast, too.

It started the day I rode over to Aunt Betty's to see Ro. That was the day I found out she'd put her own name on one of the little coffins on the edge of the Coffin quilt. And if that wasn't enough, it was the day Johnse came to visit.

"I'
M SCARED,
F
LOYD,
" I said.

My brother looked up from his carving. He was making a baby cradle. Wood shavings were all around his feet. On the shelf in front of a big window sat little horses, bows and arrows, some corn guns, and a wooden dancing bear. The place smelled of wood and wood shavings. I watched his strong hands caress the wood, testing it for smoothness. He often made cradles for people. Was this one for Ro? Did he know about her baby? Might be he did. She came to talk to him, too, here in his little cabin when the notion took her. But if it was for Ro, he'd never say. And I wouldn't ask.

"I heard a mourning dove last night," I told him. "Ma says they only call when there's somebody to mourn. I'm a-goin' to see Ro today. And I'm scared of what I'll find."

He eyed me from beneath long lashes. Women went
crazy over Floyd when he went to dances and such. "Seen any turtle doves of late?" he asked.

"Saw one this morning."

"Know what that means, don't you? That somebody loves you and sent the turtle dove to tell you. Likely he was bringing a message to Ro from Johnse."

"Why'd he come here? And not go to Aunt Betty's?"

"Likely nobody told him she wasn't here anymore." Floyd wasn't spoiling for a fight with the Hatfields, like most other McCoys. He liked to live peaceable with everybody. Besides, both McCoys and Hatfields bought his toys.

"Bill's pebble is on the damned side of Ma's rock," I said. I could talk to Floyd about such things, being as he held himself a bit away from the family. He loved them and would never let me bad-mouth them, but he wouldn't let them hold sway over him, either.

"That's 'cause he went hunting last Sunday and never came for Meeting."

"Do you think he's damned?"

"No."

"Do you think the Devil is wagering for Ro's soul, like Pa says?"

"No more than he's wagering for everybody else's."

I felt everything inside me settling. "After today, it's likely my pebble will be with Bill's."

He raised one eyebrow. "They don't know you're going to see her?"

"No. Which is why I couldn't bring her anything from the house. I wish I had something to bring her."

He reached around and fumbled behind him for a
moment. He took something from a shelf and handed it to me. It was small, round, and smooth.

"A stone," I said.

"Not just a stone. A madstone. Taken from the stomach of a deer. It can draw poison from a snakebite."

The stone lay warm in my hand. I rubbed my fingers over it. "Thank you, Floyd."

"I'll be sending her something else soon," he said.

I nodded. "You won't be telling where I went today if they ask?"

"'Course not. Go on with you. And be careful in the woods."

***

V
ERDY,
V
IOLA, AND
Maelene, Aunt Betty's three girls, weren't home, thank heaven. I'd never liked them. They were a bit younger than Ro, not married yet, and smitten with men. All they did was fuss over themselves and make new dresses. I know they didn't like Ro because she was purtier than all three of them put together.

Aunt Betty hugged me and gave me a glass of buttermilk and some fresh cookies to take outside where Ro was sitting under the mimosa tree, sewing. "Glad somebody's come to see her," she whispered. "She's pining away for home." I could tell she was worried about Ro because Aunt Betty baked when she worried. Now wisps of gray-white hair framed her round pleasant face. The kitchen was hot and full of cakes and pies. She must have been baking all morning.

"Is she still working on that Coffin quilt, Aunt Betty?"

"She's right now sewing a coffin on the edge for her baby," she said. "I know that some people in these parts use such quilts as family records. But it's downright tempting fate to put a baby coffin on one. Go on and talk to her. Your sunny little face will do her good, honey."

I knew my face wasn't sunny. Neither was I. But I went out to find Ro, setting the milk and cookies down on a wooden bench. "How you feeling, Ro?"

She stopped stitching and looked past me, dreamily. "Do you know that there's a little creek down there name of Devil's Jump? It's all full of boulders and rocks and such. They say the Devil passed by here with his apron full of rocks. He proposed to burden the land with them, but his apron string busted and he dropped the rocks right there in the creek."

It wasn't like Ro to set store in tales about the Devil like most people in these mountains did. She was brooding. "How you coming with the quilt?" I asked.

"It'll be done soon."

"That's a mighty little coffin there. Who's it for?"

She smiled. "My baby."

"Afore it's born? You know Pa said he didn't want any McCoy names on the quilt."

"He's not here, is he? Anyways, it's not
for
the baby. When it comes, I'll put its name there and date of birth. It's a record of sorts. See here? Here's a little coffin for the little 'un Johnse's mother is expecting."

A chill went through me. "Got a present for you from Floyd." I gave her the madstone.

She took it up, smiled, and held it in her hand. "It's
still warm from his touch. It holds the warmth of the person who takes it from the stomach of the deer, you know. That's right nice of Floyd. Thank him for me. How's things to home?"

I shrugged. "The same."

"They know you're here today?"

"No. But you know I'm always allowed to wander free on Saturday as I please."

"I'd rather you visit me than anybody," she said. "And since you've come, there's a promise I want from you, Fanny."

I felt a sense of doom, like the sun just left the heavens. "What?"

"I know you don't like this quilt, but that's just because you don't understand it. Promise me that if anything ever happens to me or my baby, you'll move our coffins to the center and make sure my baby's name and date of birth and death get put on right."

I stared at my beautiful sister. I'd heard people talk of how women who were expecting a baby got all kinds of strange notions and had to be humored. Was this one of them? Or was Ro suddenly getting strange in the head?

"Why should anything happen to you or your baby?" I asked.

"Just promise me you'll do as I ask, Fanny. And then keep the quilt forever."

A chilly breeze stirred the branches of the mimosa tree. From the kitchen came Aunt Betty's singing. "Queen Jane" was the song. I knew of it. Calvin explained how it told how Henry the Eighth, who had his
wives' heads cut off, followed Jane Seymour, one of them, to the grave. And how lots of our songs are handed down from the Old World, from England. He said that's why we say things like "afeared." Because Shakespeare did, too.

Ro was waiting for me to answer. But I recollected what Tolbert had told me once, "Don't ever be pushed into a promise. Say you'll study on it."

"I'll study on it," I told her.

Did she hear me? Of a sudden someone whistled, clear and sharp on the fall air, from the direction of Devil's Jump. Ro stood. The quilt tumbled from her lap. "Oh, it's Johnse! I knew he'd come. I knew he couldn't stay away."

I watched her fly across the grass down to the creek. I sat there munching Aunt Betty's sugar cookies. The Coffin quilt had landed on my lap.

I
SPIED ON
them. Those are the only words to put on what I did that day when Ro met Johnse Hatfield near Devil's Jump. I hid behind some rocks that the Devil had dropped conveniently when his apron string busted and listened to what they said to each other.

After they finished hugging and kissing that is. And they did that for some time. I thought they'd never stop, but finally they did and that's when I listened.

He told her how he'd heard she was here. He asked her why.

She told him it was because she just couldn't live under Pa's roof, with his hate creeping around her like a ginseng vine around a tree. "And I haven't even told you about the baby yet."

That's when Johnse broke loose from her and looked like he'd just been hit by one of the boulders dropped from the Devil's apron. "Baby?" he asked.

You can picture what followed. Lots more hugging and kissing, which was only proper, I reckon. Ro got all shy then, like she never got with anybody. And I wondered if the Devil was indeed wagering for her soul.

"Can we go into the house and talk?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Wouldn't be fair to Aunt Betty if she let you in, being as we're not wed. She's courting gossip just letting me stay with her."

"All right," he said. "We'll talk here. It isn't that I'm not happy about the baby, Ro. How couldn't I be? But we've got to do something. I don't want my child a wood's colt."

"What'll we do?" she asked.

They studied on the matter. Like there was all kinds of things for them to do when both knew there was only one. Get hitched. And both knew how impossible it was.

"Do you think we could?" she asked.

Johnse shook his head. "Onliest way is if we ran off. Got shut of this place and everybody around here."

"Then how would we live?" Ro asked. "There'd be nobody to help us raise a house or give us a start. You know how important that is, Johnse. And neither one of us has got a penny to our name."

They brooded some more. "We'll figure a way," he said. "And next time I come, I'll have an answer. I promise you, darlin'. I'll be back next week. Meet me here by this creek. One week from today."

I got out from behind that old boulder then and crept away, back to the mimosa tree, all the while trying to figure out how to help them. It wasn't right they
couldn't wed. I knew that, young as I was. Just the same as I knew that you wash your head with apple vinegar if you get cooties.

Ro didn't talk much for the rest of our visit. Just went back to work on that old Coffin quilt of hers like nothing had happened. She sure was set on stitching that baby's little black coffin down firm.

Aunt Betty asked me to stay for supper, but I said no, I had to get home. I could stay away "in the woods" just so long, even on a Saturday, without having to explain where I was.

"Can I come back next Saturday?" I asked Ro. I didn't want her to run off with Johnse without me knowing it.

She said yes. And made no connection to Johnse's coming again. It was like she was someplace else in her head and didn't even know I was leaving.

***

I
MUST HAVE
been someplace else in my head, too, not to reckon that Johnse could pay a visit to my sister without word getting around like a brush fire. By the time I came to the supper table my whole family knew he'd been there.