Virginia Hamilton (8 page)

Boys leaned forward toward Thomas. Justice had worked her way up to a point next to him and slightly behind. No boy paid any attention to her.

“C-c-caaatching snakes-won’t-be … nuh-nuh-near theee whole-thing youuu got-to-do on Fr-frriday,” Thomas told them. The sticks he’d been holding still began a beat and he spoke smoothly. “You got to sack them and bike ’em back here.”

Wide-eyed, the boys turned and stared at one another.

“We get them back here and string ’em in the trees.” He pointed to the twisted osage. “Until Saturday and the countdown.”

“Whaaa?” Boys began to holler. “You going to make us hang snakes in the trees?”

Thomas spoke carefully with the drums rolling softly. “I
said,
we going to hang the
sacks
of snakes in the trees. Back in there where the leaves are thickest, in on the low branches where no one will notice. See, the branches grow across-ways, looking for sunlight. If you can’t listen no better than that, y’all ought to quit now while you ahead.”

“The
sacks
of them!”

“I thought he mean—”

“Try not to think,” Thomas scolded them. “Leave the thinking to the Major Drummer!”

He let the kettles roar. Sound hit the boys like a sudden front of thunderous weather.

“Yeoow!” Boys fell back as if wind had knocked them over.

“Okay, you guys,” Thomas said, silencing the drums. He stood at attention before the boys until they had again settled back. The drums commenced to hum seemingly of their own accord.

“See,” he told them, “snakes can get loose of most anything, except a sack you can draw real tight-closed at the top. But that kind of drawsack—you know, like you keep trunks and towels in for the town pool—that kind of sack has to be made of stuff that’ll let the snakes breathe free air through. Easier for you is to have one of the big plastic peanut-butter containers. With the handles and the lids.” He studied each one of the boys to make certain they understood.

“You punch little holes in the lids,” he told them, “and hang the containers up by the handles. See if you got any. Most folks have ’em.”

He waited a moment before continuing; but the humming drums did not cease. “It’s just for one night,” he told them. “Part of The Great Snake Race, of which I am the sole inventor, is to find out if you guys can keep them snakes overnight and keep a secret, too. Because you have to have the snakes on Saturday.
Alive.
And no mom or dad to know, either.

“No wounded snakes and no dead snakes count for The Great Snake Race on Saturday,” Thomas finished finally.

“But I thought—” Justice spoke before she realized. She’d been listening closely to Thomas. Now Levi gave her a look to shush her.

She whispered to him, “I thought it was going to be just on Friday.”

“Friday and Saturday. You’re not supposed to talk,” he whispered back.

It annoyed her that he, too, followed along, giving Thomas the right to say who could talk and when.

Next thing, he’ll be telling us when to breathe.

But she stayed quiet, for The Great Snake Race began to loom large, like the small patch of gray on a horizon that built into a summer storm.

Two days! she thought. Keep the snakes caged and keep them alive! I bet the biggest is the best for staying curled up in a sack. And best for racing.

She didn’t dare think what it would be like to catch and handle a large snake. Even the skinny snake she’d handled had had strength which surprised her.

Get it in a sack fast as you can and bring it on home.

There was quiet. Stillness rushed them in the absence of drumming. Thomas spoke eagerly: “Fr-frriday, tuh-ten o’clock. Weee meet-at thee Quin
ella
Trace.” Words popping and bursting. “You-you youuuu got-as muh-muuch
time
as you-you neeed
tooo
catch ’em, but … buuuut
don’t
tuh-tuh-tuh-ake forever!”

“Better make a limit,” Levi told him; then, quietly, in the same voice as Thomas’: “You’ve forgotten to drum.”

“O-oh,” Thomas said, in Levi’s voice.

His hands moved, not with any kind of speed that Justice could see. All the same, the drumsticks became a blur. And sound, like a mystery in a minor key, rose and fell and echoed all around them.

“Two hours is the limit of time to hunt the snakes,” Thomas said easily. “Then bring ’em back and string ’em up.” Softly, the drums rolled. “You can leave ’em over there in the trees until Saturday morning, early.”

“How early?” someone asked him.

“While your folks still be sleeping,” he said. “Six-thirty.”

“Aw, Tom-Tom, too early, man,” said Slick. “Saturday, my mom is asleep even by nine-thirty.”

“Then you got it made,” Thomas told him.

“Yeah, but then
I
can’t sleep late,” Slick said.

“My dad sleeps all day,” Dorian said eagerly. He looked happy, all thought of tears gone now. “But my mom’s around. Don’t know what-all time she starts up.” They knew his mom wouldn’t pay any attention to his going.

Wonder how she’s feeling, thought Justice.

Other boys were moaning, “Why so early?”

Thomas gave them a blast of the kettles. He flicked hand screws, changing tones to unearthly, magnificent sound.

The boys quieted. Without their having noticed, a thin mist had gathered over the field. It rose from the ground like shadow.

“Y’all have to be such babies!” Thomas said. “You be up here by six-thirty and you come
quiet!”

What Tom-Tom hadn’t told them, but what Levi knew, was that they dare not wake their own parents on Saturday. They mustn’t let them know about the snake race. Levi was certain that his mom, especially, wouldn’t take kindly to pails and sacks of snakes hanging in the trees.

“He’ll do it every time,” he said to himself about Tom-Tom. Hope nothing goes wrong.

Drumming, Thomas told them: “You have all day tomorrow to find some of them plastic pails.

Don’t anybody come in here on Friday without one or a good drawsack.”

“We got this yellow
big
pail with a handle at home,” Dorian said. “Only, it’s about halfway full of peanut butter.”

The boys laughed at him.

“Empty,” Thomas said. “Halfway
empty
of peanut butter.” He beat one drum absently.

“Yeah,” Dorian said, “I can scoop up the peanut butter and make it in a ball with two hands. And … and hide it in the freezer!”

“Don’t fool around!” Thomas told him, with the boys snickering.

“I’m not fooling,” Dorian said.

Why is he acting stupid? Justice wondered.

“Dorian,” Thomas said, “you do something dumb, like hiding peanut-butter balls, and your mom or dad’ll find out what we’re doing for sure.”

“Oh. Well,” Dorian said, “I’ll eat it all up tonight.”

“Man—Dorian, you just come on Friday. I’ll have a pail for you.” Thomas gave a glance to Levi to see if this would be all right.

Levi didn’t make a move that Justice could see. But with his eyes he gave agreement to Thomas. She knew that if one of her brothers was to fix up a pail for Dorian, it wouldn’t be Thomas. Thomas never fixed up anything, or took care of anything, except his drums. Levi even made Thomas’ bed and cleaned up their room. And that made Justice mad. There wasn’t a soul to help her out with keeping her room straight.

Expect me to pick up everything myself, she thought. And make the bed … hang up all my clothes …

Not many months ago, her mom had made her bed each morning, and picked up the mess of her room. Justice had had clean, ironed clothes every day. Now all had changed. She suspected that nothing would ever be the same.

I don’t like it here, she thought. Why don’t I go around to sit awhile with Mom and Dad?

She knew why. She never could pull herself away when the boys were gathered. She could not help herself, for, like a moth, she was captured by their light.

A
POM
sounded on one kettledrum and a Pom again on the other, a third tone higher than the first. The beat swelled in drumrolls huge and deep. So massive a sound surrounded them that Justice believed it must have lifted Levi to his feet, as it had some of the other boys. It was a sound of such strength it had to have brought the twilight. While she could see Levi, the features of his face seemed to have run together. Just as if a cloth had wiped away his eyes, nose and mouth. Glad she was that sunlight had vanished. Tomorrow would come that much sooner, and so, on to Friday.

Justice looked around the field at the boys, who were also featureless. She saw again the great cottonwood tree on the east boundary.

Cottonwoman, so silent.

She’d caught hold of the darkening and was arranging it around her.

Thomas was a shadow hunched over two dark pools. Sound rolled and resounded from the kettles. It floated the boys by twos down the field, through a wispy film of mist. The boys drifted away.

Wait!

They had no bodies.

How do you race the snakes?

Justice could pick out heads of boys like bobbing balloons. But she couldn’t tell which head was which.

The field emptied, except for the three of them. Musky odor of perspiration mixed with the scent of grass on the heat of night. Wordlessly, her brothers prepared to leave. They pulled a dolly from beneath an osage. The low truck was homemade, with wheels they had scrounged. They picked up drop cloths to cover the kettledrums. Then they placed the drums on the dolly.

She held the gate wide open for them as they strained to handle the dolly through. And surprised she was to see porch lights on at the house. Justice thought how sweet the lights looked, of safety, as her brothers struggled up the backyard.

She took a last look at the field. Nothing much to see but night coming quickly on. A field of grass darkening. When she was older, she would take a turn mowing it—she would make them let her. Osage trees were one mass. Houses down there—Dorian’s, the Stevenson place next to his—were all of them lighted. She felt warm. The night had stayed hot.

When is it gonna cool?

She had a jumble of thoughts. Who would’ve thought the Pickle and Cream Gang was here minutes ago?

And drums. And rolling noise.

Loved it, too. Every minute. Hope it happens again.

Good night, everybody, she thought to houses down the field.

’Night, Cottonwoman, see you tomorrow.

Justice waited, but there was no real answer from the cottonwood tree.

Already asleep, Justice thought. Vaguely, she wondered if the cottonwoman had heard her.

Anyone can race a snake. Nothing to it.

Pulling the gate closed, she reached the house in two leaps, it felt like, of her churning legs.

Before darkness could trip her up and right after Thomas had closed the door in her face.

S
HE HAD A JUMP
rope and had wound it around her wrists to shorten it. Already, she had jumped hundreds of times without missing, and she was still jumping.

She was singing, “One-day. Stew-day. A bake-day, coming up,” but her lips didn’t move.

In the field, the osage trees bowed down, waving at her with the slow motion of plants under water.

“Four-day. Boil-day. Here’s a Fry-day.”

It was night in the field. She could see as though it were day. Midday sun warmed her back, although there was no sun shining. The sun-night didn’t seem odd to her.

Jumping rope made a noise—whum-uhk—each time the rope turned through the air and hit the ground. She jumped in an old pair of boots belonging to Thomas. They were too big and floppy, and half full of rainwater. Her socks were soaked through, but she didn’t mind. Everything around her, the whole field, was black and shiny with rain.

Must’ve poured real hard.

The field became a glistening river. Justice stopped the rope to get a better look at it. But she couldn’t stop jumping. With each jump, she came closer to the river water.

Don’t fall in!

She curled her toes, screaming, and made no sound. She held her breath to keep from jumping. Yet, in no time she was at the edge of the black river.

The rope shivered in her hands. Cool and leathery, it wiggled and slithered. She let go of it and it dropped into her boot. Tightening around her ankle, the rope bit her toes.

Justice fell into the river on her stomach. She held her breath until the need for air forced her to breathe water. Black water filled her nostrils and her mouth. She gulped it down eagerly, hoping to drink up the river before she had to become a fish.

Something pounded and pounded as she woke up. Gasping for air, Justice sat straight up and nearly screamed out of fear. Slowly, she came to recognize her room. She was in bed, where she was supposed to be. The pounding was her own heart racing.

The dream vanished completely in her warm, dry room, with the earliest morning light pressed against the windows.

My nose is stuffed up. Maybe why I couldn’t breathe.

She had kicked her covers into a ball at the foot of the bed. Her pillow was on the floor.

I’m never going to sleep again.

Frightened, she would’ve liked to call for her mom.

Must be still very early.

Instead of calling out, she managed to straighten the sheet and blanket and pull them over her. Leaning out over the edge of the bed, she snatched her pillow from the floor as if plucking a babe from water. And curled herself into a ball with the covers and pillow over her head.

Now I’m safe.

She was safest of all when no part of her—head, toes or elbows—was left uncovered. But after a minute there wasn’t enough air to breathe. Smothering, she punched a small hole leading out from under the pillow. A nice stream of air made its way to her. She took deep breaths until she felt calm; still, she kept her eyes wide open.

I’ll wait for Mom or Dad to get up. Dad first, I guess. Has to be still early enough for him. I won’t sleep again.

Somewhere within the staring into the safety of her bedclothes, she did fall asleep again. It was a fitful sleep with no clear dreams. A nothingness, with sudden bursts of meaningless words. She recognized the sound of them as the single voice of herself, Thomas and Levi.