Days of Little Texas (22 page)

As we make our way up the hill, I notice some branches down here and there, but not much else to show for the big storm. The whole island smells washed clean over. Tee Barlow and Certain Certain and the other helpers get to hauling the King Johnnies up to the clearing, while I get Sugar Tom situated in the shade in a special folding chair all decked out with cushions and a little thing to hold a drink of cranberry juice, his favorite.

I’m impatient watching the men work, standing up the Johnnies and hauling wet tarps off the lumber. But I’m determined to wait till Certain Certain can come with me.
Finally he takes a break, coming over to get a drink in the shade.

“Whew,” he says, mopping his face on his sleeve. “Folks got to have they baffrooms, I reckon. All right, Lightning, what you got in mind?”

“There’s something I want to show you back up in the woods. It won’t take long.” I turn to Sugar Tom. “You going to be all right here? Is there anything you need?”

“I’m fine right here, Ronald Earl. Plenty for me to observe. Take in. Don’t forget what I told you. About being still, I mean. And seeing.”

“I won’t. You sure you’re not too hot?”

He takes my hands in his, clutches them to him a second. “I’m fine. You head on.”

“All right.” I look at Certain Certain.

“Lead on, McDuff,” he says.

We hike a good ways up the trail without talking, then Certain Certain pulls up, breathing hard.

“Getting old?” I say.

He grimaces, making his tore-up lip look awful. “You feel old, too, you been slavin’ with the rest of us. This gonna take much longer?”

“I don’t think so.”

But it’s always further back than I realize. “Mercy.” Certain Certain picks at a spiderweb tangling his ear after we’ve walked a good ways more. “These woods are full of haints. Can’t you feel ’em, Lightning?”

“I thought the Bible teaches we’re not supposed to believe in that stuff.”

“Not the kind like you’re thinking. I mean the
history
.”

I can see the long bend in the trail now, picturing Lucy’s dress flowing out in front of me as she disappeared.

“It’s in that clearing up ahead.”

There it is—the tree, just about as awesome in the daylight. I can see the rusty metal things now, dozens of them, sprouting from the branches like muddy Christmas ornaments.

Certain Certain huffs up behind me. “Boy, this better not be a wild-goose chase, or I’m liable to—oh my Lord. Oh my
Lord
.”

I wait for him to go on, but he’s just looking. “What do you think?” I say.

“Oh my Lord. You know what this is, boy? Oh my dear sweet
Lord
.”

Certain Certain takes a few steps into the clearing, then a few more. He squats down facing the giant trunk.

“My Lord. I sure never expected to see one,” he says at last. “Makes a man feel downright
small
. Reverent.”

“But what is it?”

“Trouble tree,” Certain Certain says quietly. “Goes back to the beginnings of slavery. The trouble tree was the place where slaves took all their troubles. A place all their own where nobody would mess with them. A place where they could gather, mostly in secret, late at night, lament all their sorrows.”

I squat down next to him. “What would they do?”

“Folks have written about it. Mostly white folks who didn’t understand, made fun. The slaves would form a circle around the tree, most likely. Sing to it. Songs of
lamentation
. Go up one at a time, stroke the bark, whisper their troubles to the tree. That was their way of letting them go. Like them kings in Africa. Trees meant a lot to them, boy.
Sacred
. Spirits lived in ’em. ’Specially ones like this big fella here, hundreds of years old. A tree like this has wisdom in it. Strength.
Protection
.”

I try to see it—all those people, torches set up around the clearing for light. Gathering in a circle to stroke the tree and sing to it.

“Doesn’t sound too Christian,” I say.

Certain Certain snorts. “Shoot, you see them things up yonder?”

He points at the rusty metal rings and chains hanging from the fat branches. Dozens and dozens of them, sunk so deep in the flesh of the tree it looks like they are part of the tree itself.

“Manacles. Leg irons. Collars. That look Christian to you, boy?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, that’s who made ’em, God-fearing Christians. Slaves most likely slung them things up there after emancipation come about. Part of their way of celebrating.”

Manacles
, I suddenly realize.
That’s what Lucy has been talking about. I can’t believe I called them bracelets
.

“You’re saying the people who used those things on the slaves went to
church?
” I say.

“’Deed they did. Some plantation owners even brought their slaves with them. Sat them around a little balcony looking down on the rest of the congregation. I saw a little church like that down in Port Gibson, Mississippi. Other owners saw the whole church thing as a threat. See, can’t be teaching what Jesus taught, they thinking, on account of that means all people are loved, important,
valued
. Which ends up meaning
equal
. So all people are meant to be
free
. See where that thinking is headed?”

I nod.

“But for a good many years, they kept their tribal customs. Place like this, sacred tree, I imagine they used this clearing once ’pon time for a ring dance.”

“What’s that?”

“Ritual where the slaves formed a ring, moved in a circle, some stepping forward, some stepping back. A lot of hand clapping, chanting, leaping. Sometimes going on for hours, folks taking each other’s places when the first batch got tuckered out. Sooner or later they brought the ring dances indoors and mixed them in with their Christian worship. Called them
shouts
. White folks didn’t understand worship that
active
. Called it heathen. Sound familiar?”

I’ve heard people say that about our church. People who don’t understand the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

“What those white folks didn’t know, this was how those
people felt God,” Certain Certain goes on. “Today we know it was the Holy Ghost bubbling up inside them. Everybody feels the anointing the way they feel it. Dancing, speaking in tongues, praisin’. It’s a personal thing. Outside folks, they still don’t understand, do they, Lightning?”

We stand there looking at it all a good while. I can’t help but think about Lucy, the way she looked at the edge of the clearing, how scared she sounded when—

“Huh, what’s this?” Certain Certain bends over and picks up the orange flashlight I dropped. He clicks the switch, then has to smack it against his leg. “Still works. That’s a good flashlight. Expensive. Why would somebody leave it out here?”

“I dropped it last night,” I say.

“You
truly
came out here after dark, Lightning?”

“Yes, sir. In the storm.”

“Good gravy train. All by yourself? Whatever did you do that for?”

“I told you,
she
brought me out here, Lucy—”

“She ain’t here today, though, is she?”

“Have I ever lied to you?”

“Not that I recollect, no.”

“She wanted me to see this place. And now I know why. The trouble tree—maybe it really
can
do what the slaves thought it could do.”

“What’s that?”

“Absorb
things. From all those people that touched it. Think about it. A hundred years, maybe
two
hundred, of people
pouring all their troubles straight into its insides. Like maybe something has built up in the tree over time. You’re going to laugh at me—”

“No, I won’t. Spit it out.”

“I think … all that anger, pain, and
fear
—I think it somehow
changed
the tree. Turned it into something different. Something
evil
.”

A wind comes off the lake, making the branches of the tree move, rattling its chains.

It’s listening
.

It goes on like that a little while, neither of us speaking. Certain Certain looks around, squinches his face up.

“Let me tell you something, boy,” he says after the wind settles back down. “Old places like this, I do believe they can soak up some of the bad feeling out there. I truly do. What is a body without the soul of the Lord breathed into it? Dust. So where does that soul go to when the body goes back to dust? Got to be
somewhere
, waiting on the Judgment. That’s nothing but pure
energy
. Energy got to go somewhere. Good and bad.”

He throws a hot arm around my shoulders. “But the true power is all on our side. Leave it to the Lord. He’ll take care of things. Always has, always will.”

“But Lucy… she was standing right here. Just as solid as you. I touched her. She pulled me out of here when the tree … well, I don’t know what happened, exactly. I got really sick….”

“I don’t know what you’ve been seeing,” Certain Certain says. “I don’t. But I’ve counted you a friend ever since you
could, well…
count
. I can see how serious this is to you. Pray on it, boy—”

“But I have….”

“Then pray some more. No such thing as stopping when it comes to prayer. Only
quitting
. Now”—he pats his stomach— “speaking of energy… you think you could lead me out of this jungle? I could sure stand me some kipper snacks. What you reckon Miss Faye packed in that cooler?”

As we make our way out of the clearing, the last thing I can hear is the clinking and clanking of those hateful pieces of iron hanging in the trouble tree. Like it’s noticing us leaving.

I feel better when we can see the plantation, the bases of the tall pillars sprouting long-stemmed grass in the cracks under the mortar. It’s so bright and sunny after being in the clearing, it lifts my heart a little. Especially with old Sugar Tom sitting there at the edge of the shade, gone to the world.

Certain Certain chuckles. I can tell he is feeling the lift, too. “Tell you what, Lightning, Miss Wanda Joy is
right
. I do believe that man could flat sleep through the final trumpet. What you say? Should we wake him up for dinner?”

Sugar Tom’s head is draped over on his arm, eyes closed, feet spraddled in front of him, same as always. I can see the volunteer workers moving a couple of green four-by-fours up on the new stage, skin red, T-shirts wet.

“What you say there, old son,” Certain Certain says, nudging at him. “You trying to set the record for Rip van Winklers? Think you might want to …”

He stops. Sugar Tom doesn’t budge.

“Sugar Tom?” Certain Certain says, shaking him a little harder. Sugar Tom’s head flops forward.

“Oh my Lord.”

Certain Certain lets go of the flashlight and drops to his knees, lifts up Sugar Tom’s craggy head, puts his big fingers against the old man’s eyelids, trying to make them come open. I see everything like it’s moving slower, and all so clear: little wispy white hairs playing around on Sugar Tom’s head in the breeze; Certain Certain’s eyes big, afraid; his voice sounding like he’s behind a wall or something.

“Ronald Earl
,” he’s saying.

It’s the first time I ever remember him calling me that. It’s like the walls of Jericho are plunging down around me all at once.

“No,” I say. “Oh no.”

No. Sugar Tom’s
dead
.

It takes the EMTs nearly thirty minutes to get here from the closest volunteer fire department. Sugar Tom’s alive, but we don’t know what is wrong with him or how to help. Tee Barlow is afraid to try and take him across on the boat, so we keep him in the shade and use shirts and a piece of tarp to try to make him comfortable. Certain Certain damps his head with a wet cloth. Sugar Tom’s eyes look afraid; he tries to say something, but the words come out garbled.

We watch while the emergency people get him trussed up on a long board, arms folded in front of him, head tucked in place with a thick strap on his forehead.

“They think it might be a stroke,” I hear one of the men say to Certain Certain.

“What’s a stroke?” I say, clenching my teeth to keep from tearing up.

The EMT man is bald and looks like he has a weight bench at home. He talks without looking at me, fiddling with something in his bag.

“The blood flow gets cut off to the brain, meaning the brain’s not getting any oxygen,” he says. “A lot depends on how long it’s been going on. If you get to it fast enough …”

“Was it the heat?” I say. “A heatstroke?” I should have gotten him better shade or made sure he was drinking enough.

“Nah, it’s probably just age,” the EMT man says. “A thrombosis, embolism. Hypertension. Too early to say.”

They fuss with a lot of tubes, get something poked into his arm for fluids, and I sit right down in the dirt. Certain Certain comes up to me.

“You okay, big man? Don’t worry. He’s a tough old skizzard.”

My hands clench and unclench in the raw earth, squeezing tight as I can. That’s when I notice it. The marks in the dirt around Sugar Tom’s chair.

“Hey.”

“What?” Certain Certain says. “What is it, boy?”

“The
ground
,” I say, more and more distressed. “I put him over here on account of it was in the shade, and there was
some nice soft grass here—but look at it. Look how it’s torn up all around his chair.”

“I see it. Maybe he was kicking, you know, kicking his legs out and—
Lord Jesus
.”

We both see it at the same time. The big tracks in the dirt circling all round Sugar Tom’s chair. Tracks that look like two crescent moons turned in toward each other.

I draw in my breath. “It’s a cloven hoof.”