Edge of Dark Water (11 page)

Finished, I sat down on the ground. After I’d been on the water for that long, the earth felt funny underneath my butt, like I had been on a merry-go-round and had gone too fast and had been thrown off.

Everyone got off the boat and sat down. Mama dug around in her bag and came up with more cold cornbread and water. The cornbread was still good and the water still tasted sweet. Even Mama ate this time.

When we finished eating, none of us was eager to get back on the raft, though there wasn’t a discussion about it. We just sat there thinking to ourselves, and not saying anything. Terry took a clean white cloth sack from his goods and opened the box with May Lynn in it, poured the ashes into the bag, and tied it off.

Mama said, “Is that…her?”

“Yep,” I said.

Terry stored the bag and we all went back to sitting and not talking. Then as we sat, we was startled by a voice.

“What are you doing here?”

I leaped to my feet, along with everyone else but Mama, who once she got seated was slow to move.

It was a man standing on the rise above us. He had the sun at his back, so all we could make out was a dark human shape. It was like the light behind him was coming out of him, shooting into the sky.

“Did you build your raft?” the shape asked.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I said did you build your raft?”

“We kind of borrowed it,” I said.

“It looks like that raft upriver,” the shape said. “The one tied out to a stump.”

“It does look a lot like it,” Terry said.

“They practically twins,” Jinx said.

“I’m pretty sure that’s the same raft,” the voice said, and the man moved down the slope toward us. As he did, with the hill at his back, and the sun hanging more above than behind him now, we got a chance to check him over good.

He was tall and thin with that kind of yellow hair that when it grays just looks more blond; the sunlight showed us that his hair had started to do just that, around the temples and at the front. There didn’t seem to be any oil in it, and it had most likely been slicked back wet with water and had sun dried. The wind moved it around on his head like old corn shucks.

He was wearing a white shirt and black pants muddy at the bottom, and some worn shoes that folded over on the sides. He was maybe in his forties and nice-looking. He smiled and showed us he had all his teeth. In my world, finding someone with all their teeth, both ears, and their nose on straight by the time they reached forty was as rare as finding a watermelon in a hen’s nest. Mama was an exception, and of course all three of us kids, but we still had a pretty good hike to go before we made forty, if we did, and Mama was still a few years off of it herself, though she treated her teeth well and was good about keeping herself washed and her few clothes clean.

As he came down the hill he kept smiling. He wasn’t a big fellow, and I figured after what I had seen Jinx do when she was mad, if he got to be a bother, we could just sic her on him with a boat paddle.

When he was down close, he turned his head and looked at Mama. It was like a fire lit up behind his eyes. I looked at her, too. She looked very pretty that morning. Like a goddess on a trip, recovering from an illness. Her long, dark hair was glossy in the sun, her face white as oats. Her head was turned up to look, and except for her sad eyes, she seemed much younger than her thirty-something years. I always knew she was pretty, but in that moment I realized she was beautiful, and I knew then why Don had wanted her, why my father had loved her. I wished I was as pretty as she was.

“We took the raft cause we had to,” Mama said.

“I’m not in the judging business,” the man said. “I think too many people are judged. Though I have to say, ‘Thou shall not steal.’”

“Ain’t nothing says ‘Thou shall not borrow,’’ Jinx said.

The man smiled, and all of a sudden I knew what I should have known right off when I seen what he was wearing and his muddy pants bottoms. He was the preacher that had done the baptism.

He came down closer, and when he did, I eased over close to a pretty good-sized rock that was by the water, measured in my head if I could throw it fast enough and hard enough to bean him a good one on the noggin, if things called for it. But he didn’t show any need for that. He came down smiling and stood by the water and put a hand to his chin and gave our raft a real good once-over.

“It’s hard to steer, isn’t it?” he said.

“A little,” Terry said.

“More than a little,” Jinx said. “It’s as ornery as a Shetland pony.”

“Oh, those Shetlands bite,” the preacher said. “I can tell you that.”

“It’s a raft,” Terry said. “Not a pony.”

“Yes,” the preacher said, “but the young girl and myself were speaking metaphorically.”

“Got that, Terry?” Jinx said. “That’s how we was speaking.”

“I understand that,” Terry said. “But I’m not speaking metaphorically.”

The man turned his smile on Mama. “Are all these but the little colored girl your family?”

“Only Sue Ellen,” she said, and nodded in my direction. “The others are friends of my daughter.”

“And friends of yours?” he asked.

“I suppose they are,” Mama said. “Yes. They’re friends of mine.”

“Well, now, I suppose if they are friends of a lady lovely as yourself, then they should be friends of mine. I’m Reverend Jack Joy. The last name is real. I didn’t make that up for religious reasons, though I certainly see myself as a man of joy, eager to raise a joyful noise in the name of the Lord.”

“I’m Helen Wilson,” Mama said, “and that’s my daughter, Sue Ellen, and the colored girl is Jinx and the young man is Terry.”

“No last names for you two?” he said, smiling at them, which is a thing he did plenty of.

“First names are fine,” Terry said.

I realized then that Mama might have been a little too eager to share, us being fugitives and all.

“It’s turning off a hot day,” Reverend Joy said. “Would you like to come up to my house and have some tea? One of my flock, not a half hour ago, brought me a block of ice that she carried in her car all the way from Marvel Creek, about half of it melting into the floorboard before she got to me. And she brought a platter of fried chicken. Ice and chicken are all laid out in the icebox. If there’s enough ice, I might could churn some ice cream, though I can’t make promises there.”

“What you doing down by the river, then, if you got all that up there?” Jinx said.

“I wasn’t hungry yet, and I came to see if the water was up. I was thinking about a little fishing later, and I wanted to see how the water was.”

“How is it?” I asked.

“High. Come on up and have something. It’s a good reason to get away from the river and the sun for a while. I didn’t really want to fish all that bad anyhow.”

“We just ate,” I said.

“Just the tea, then,” he said.

“We got to be on our way,” I said.

“I understand you being cautious,” Reverend Joy said, “you people not knowing me. But I’ve been a reverend in these parts here for two years, and so far, I haven’t shot or eaten anybody.”

“It is turning off hot,” Mama said, smoothing her hair. “I could have a glass of tea, and hold something to eat in abeyance. Maybe that ice cream.”

I looked at Mama, surprised. She was flirting. I had never seen her do it, but I had seen May Lynn go at it, and she was a master, so I recognized it for what it was. Still, Mama doing it was as strange to me as if I had looked into the mirror and discovered for the first time that I was actually a hippopotamus wearing a derby hat.

“Good, then,” Reverend Joy said. “I’ll just lead the way.”

“We can’t leave the raft,” I said.

“Sure you can,” Reverend Joy said. “It’s tied off good. And after we have some refreshment, I’ve got a bit of lumber and such, and I think we can make you a rudder. You’re going to go down the river, a rudder would make it a whole lot easier to control your craft. Way I figure, the current, which is strong there, pulled you right off the main river. After you have something cold, maybe a bite to eat, you can set right off again.”

Except for Mama, we were hesitating. She, on the other hand, had gotten up and was starting to move toward the hill. Reverend Joy took note of it and quickly took her arm and led the way up. I don’t know what he said to her as they walked away, but she thought it was funny. She giggled. I hadn’t heard her do that in a long time. Actually, I hadn’t never heard her do it quite like that, way a schoolgirl will do when she’s playing some kind of game or the other.

When Mama and the Reverend Joy was a little ahead of us, I said to Jinx and Terry, “I’m not sure I like this.”

“He might know we’re on the run and is gonna turn us in,” Jinx said.

“I doubt our pursuers have spread the word,” Terry said. “They want to keep that money quiet. But he might have a car, and with him attracted to your mama, he may be generous enough to give us a ride to Gladewater and we won’t need the raft. Come on, let’s not let your mama out of our sight.”

We gathered up our stuff, including the money and May Lynn’s ashes, and followed Reverend Joy and Mama up and over the hill.

T
he Reverend Joy’s house wasn’t big, but it was solidly made of logs and had split shingles. It rose up higher than most single-floor houses. The shingles was coated over with a thin brushing of tar to keep out water, and I could see tar paper sticking out from under them at the edges. The roof was shiny in the sun. The front porch was tight, with firm steps, and had a rocking chair on it.

Out front of the house was a black car with a coating of dust and a front right tire and wheel missing. The axle on that side was up on some wood blocks and there was grass growing around the car like hair around a mole. A half dozen crows were camped on it and had speckled it like a hound pup with their white droppings; they gave us a beady look as we came up. With his car up on those wooden blocks, looked to me like we wouldn’t be talking the reverend into taking us anywhere.

There was a well house out front, too. It was nicely built of seasoned lumber. It had a roof over it with a platform out to the side where you could step up and take hold of the rope and work the pulley to drop the bucket down the well. There was a pretty good-sized shed nearby, too. It was made of logs, like the house, and had the same kind of shingles. It had an open place with a roof over it and a long bench under it, and another section that was closed in by walls and a door. There was an outhouse not far away and it was painted blood red; it had been built recent, and a few spare two-by-fours and the like lay near it in the yard.

Only the garden looked out of step. It was a pretty big square with some buggy squash growing on top of badly hoed hills, and a line of beans that were yellowed and withering. The whole thing looked as if it was begging to be set on fire and plowed under, so as to be put out of its misery.

On a hill, not real far away, was a church. I figured that would be the reverend’s church, and this would be the house the congregation provided.

Inside the house there was a window on every wall, two on each of the long walls. The windows was all lifted to let in air, and there was outside screens over the windows to keep out bugs. It was cooler inside than I would have thought, and that was probably on account of the tall ceiling. He had a new icebox in one corner and everything in the house was scattered about and old enough to have been found in a pyramid in Egypt. But there was plenty of it. We all took a seat at a big plank table in the center of the room. The reverend got some glasses out of a cabinet, went to the icebox, took an ice pick, and went to chopping us some chips. He put them in glasses, and from another part of the icebox he got out a pitcher of tea and poured tea into the glasses.

We sat and looked at each other and sipped our tea, which was made with lots of sugar; it was so sweet it made my head swim, but it was cold and wet and I was glad to have it.

The Reverend Joy lost interest in the rest of us and spent his time looking at Mama. It was the kind of sick look a calf has for its mama.

“You on some kind of picnic?” he asked her.

“A pilgrimage of sorts,” Mama said. “We are off to see what we can see.”

“Is that a fact?” he said.

“It is,” Mama said.

“Well, I’m sure glad to have you in my house, and that God has brought us together,” Reverend Joy said.

“Or the river,” Jinx said.

“What’s that?” he said.

“Maybe the river brought us together, and not God,” Jinx said.

“Aren’t they the same?” Reverend Joy said.

“They might be, but if they is the same,” Jinx said, “that same river that will get you together for a glass of tea will drown you or get you snakebit.”

The Reverend Joy grinned at Jinx. She looked a mess, as all of us was, except Mama. Then again, she hadn’t dug up two bodies, burned up one in a brick factory, wrestled goods onto a boat, and poled and paddled down the river. That sort of thing had taken the freshness out of the rest of us. But Jinx, she was special messed up. She had bits of pine straw in her pigtails, and the sides of her pants showed damp dirt. I figured when she got up from that chair her butt would leave enough mud you could plant a fair stand of corn in it and have room left over for a hill or two of cucumbers.

“You don’t sound like a strong believer in the Word or the Heart of the Lord,” Reverend Joy said, never losing his smile.

“I got my own thoughts,” Jinx said.

This was true, but I knew her well enough to know they weren’t under lock and key and could come out and be seen with only the slightest bump of suggestion. I was hoping Reverend Joy would leave it there, but like the rest of his breed and politicians, he just couldn’t.

“I suppose you’re one of those wants to see a miracle before you’ll believe,” he said.

“That would be a good start,” Jinx said. “I think that could get me in the boat right away.”

The Reverend Joy chuckled a bit, like he was giggling over something silly a kitten had done, and maybe at the back of that giggle he was thinking about a sack to go with that kitten, along with some rocks and a trip to the river. “Miracles happen every day.”

“You seen one?” Jinx said.

“The bluebird that sings in the morning,” he said. “The sun that comes up. The—”

“What I want to see,” Jinx said, “is something a little more surprising and less regular.”

“Don’t be rude, Jinx,” Mama said.

After that remark the reverend lost his smile and it got so quiet in the room you could have heard a sparrow fart from the top of a tall pine tree. I was thinking that when I got the chance, I’d have to pull Jinx aside and explain to her how you just had to let religious folks run their thoughts out, because if you didn’t believe what they did, they would keep coming back at you with it until you finally was a believer or lied or drowned yourself just to get some peace.

Finally a smile came back to visit the Reverend Joy’s face. “I know a man that had a terrible accident. He got a wagon turned over on him and it crushed his chest. By the time they got him to the doctor he was dead. They laid him out and called the family, and when they come in to look at him, he woke up.”

“He wasn’t never dead, then,” Jinx said. “The dead don’t wake up.”

“It was a miracle.”

“Wasn’t never dead,” Jinx said again.

“Doctor said he was.”

“Doctor was wrong,” Jinx said.

“Now, you weren’t there,” Reverend Joy said.

“Was you?”

“Jinx,” Mama said.

“No, but I got it on good word,” the reverend said.

Jinx nodded and sipped her tea. “Did this man got a wagon rolled on him get up off the table and go on with things like nothing ever happened?”

“He did,” the reverend said.

“Right then?”

“No. He had to recover. The ribs and chest had to heal.”

“So,” Jinx said, “it was a miracle that needed a doctor to look in on him, and he needed time to get over things, like that crushed chest and such.”

“Yes, but God was watching.”

“Uh-huh,” Jinx said. “He might have been watching, but I can’t see he did much. And where was he when that wagon rolled over on that fella? What was he doing then? And if that’s a miracle, my ass is white.”

“Jinx!” Mama said, but since Jinx didn’t really know her that well, her complaint didn’t carry much weight.

Jinx plowed ahead. “Always someone’s got to tell me about miracles and how they happen now like in the Bible. Mama read that Bible to me when I was young, and it cured me of religion itself. That Old Testament is just chock-full of mean ol’ men who killed whole tribes of people and was with other men’s wives, and even their own children, and they’re the heroes.

“Them other books, the New Testament about Jesus, they’re better, but there ain’t one miracle in that book like any miracle I’ve heard about that’s happened now. That Lazarus, he didn’t come back from the dead then need a week to rest before he could get out of bed. He come back all ready to go. And blind men and cripples Jesus was said to heal didn’t have to have a doctor come help them out and cure them up after Jesus was said to put his word on them. They was in a miracle right then, not over a stretch of time. The cripples leaped up and walked, blind men took to seeing right away. Least, that’s the stories. And it don’t fit anything I’ve heard you talk about, no matter what you name it. Way I see it, if there’s miracles, tell me how many folks done lost arms and legs and had them grow back. Got an eye poked out and had a new one pop back in their head. That happens now and then, I might go more in the direction of believing that hooey.”

The Reverend Joy had been sitting there listening to Jinx politely, but his cheeks were red as fire and his smile had tumbled off. There was a feeling in the air like we had all just seen a cow drop a pile in the floor, but didn’t none of us want to mention it.

The Reverend Joy sat staring at Jinx. Then slowly he found his smile again. It was a little crooked, but he had it back. “You know, baby girl, you have some real thoughts there on miracles. And maybe I’ve been too quick to call something that is explainable a miracle. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a God and that he doesn’t watch over us and there aren’t miracles.”

“I certainly believe he watches over us,” Mama said.

“So do I,” Terry said.

I decided to remain quiet and on the fence.

“You may not believe in him,” Reverend Joy said, “but he believes in you. And he’s up there watching and caring.”

“Well, if he’s up there and watching and caring,” Jinx said, “he’s sure one for making you earn your spot.”

You’d think that stuff Jinx was talking about would have made the Reverend Joy sour on us right away, but it didn’t. At first I think it crawled up under his skin like a dying animal, but the more he sat and thought on it, the more I think he liked it. I figure that was because he thought he might save Jinx and offer up her soul to Jesus, though most likely, like a lot of whites, he thought she’d end up in Nigger Heaven, which was separate of whites and would give the white folk someone to do their laundry and cooking during harp concerts and the like.

Anyway, they went at it, arguing religion. No matter how the reverend tried to give his ideas, he couldn’t make headway. I could tell Jinx had become a challenge to him, his Wall of Jericho that needed tumbling down. This led to us staying for dinner, and having that ice cream—which was a little runny and not that cold—and then it led to the reverend sleeping in his car, and the rest of us sleeping in his house, though he made a few suggestions that indicated he might like Jinx out in the storage building.

That night, Mama slept in the bed in the other room, and the rest of us slept on pallets on the floor under the table. Terry went to sleep right away, but me and Jinx was awake. I could hear her tossing and turning.

I told Jinx, “If you don’t get converted before supper tomorrow, we might have a whole day of something good to eat.”

“I promise not to embrace Jesus before then.”

“There may come a time, though,” I said, “when he gets tired of the argument, and you might want to get converted so we can keep eating and having a roof over our heads. I think he likes trying to convert you right now, but later he may insist on it.”

“What I was really thinking is we don’t need no roof,” Jinx said. “What we need is to get back on the river. We haven’t gone that far, and here we sit.”

“Mama’s doing better,” I said. “She even seems a little happy. Maybe she just needs some time.”

“I had an uncle was a drunk, and that cure-all is the same kind of thing,” Jinx said. “What happens is they quit a day or so, then they get to craving, and they get sick, then they get better if they don’t go back to it. But the real bad time is coming yet, and you got to be ready for it.”

“You don’t know that,” I said.

“I know it well enough,” she said. “Same as I know that fried chicken tonight was too salty.”

“You ain’t against looking a gift horse in the mouth, are you?”

“Even if the horse is free, you ought to check its teeth now and again to make sure ain’t none of them falling out,” Jinx said. “Besides, I ain’t the reason he wants us here. It ain’t arguing religion he likes so much. He likes your mama.”

“I see that,” I said.

“He looks at her, it’s like he’s licking his lips over a pork chop.”

“You think he’s got bad intentions?” I asked.

“He’s got regular man intentions, that’s for sure.”

That night rolled into a series of nights, and then I lost count. We got the river off our mind. The food was good and it was brought to the reverend free by his church members, though there was someone who always did overdo the salt.

It was a good life and easy, and I wasn’t having to carry stove wood to bed with me. There wasn’t any sudden outburst that ended in Mama holding her eye and limping off to the bedroom. The reverend had a good singing voice, and he sang spirituals and old songs, and he sang them well, like his voice was coming from down deep in a well.

This enjoyment didn’t keep me from allowing the reverend to help us build that rudder he talked about for our raft. Then he built a kind of hut made of lumber and logs in the middle of it. It wasn’t much of a hut, but it could hold all of us at one time if we didn’t breathe heavy or think too hard. He even stocked the hut with a couple bags full of goods so that if we decided to leave, we’d have a few things with us.