Kathryn Magendie (7 page)

She stopped me on the trail and stood facing me. “Nobody got a mirror tells the truth like a friend, and this here friend says you
are not
that way.” She began walking again.

I smiled, swinging my arms by my side with a sudden happy joy to be with Sweetie. “What else?”

“I am tired of talking.”

“It makes the time go faster.”

She shrugged. “Time’s nothing but what it is.”

“What if I go in a coma before we get there and never get to hear more about Zemry?”

“Good gawd-a-mighty, you are not getting in no coma.” She scratched her leg.

“You never know.”

“I do so know.”

“Nuh uh.”

She picked up a rock from the trail, examined it, then dropped it. “Sometimes I want to be a Indian. But I don’t reckon I am.”

“My father’s family is Italian.”

“Maybe my daddy’s people is Indian, so I’m sorter like Zemry.”

“Hey, you never talk about your father. How come?”

She shrugged.

“Where is he? What’s he look like?”

She shrugged again.

“You don’t know your own father?”

“I know some.” She kicked at a mushroom.

“Like what?”

“Like, Grandpaw said Daddy had a wandering soul and sailed round the world to find treasures for me and Mama.”

A sticker grabbed my orange pants and when I pulled, the sticker ripped a hole.

Sweetie looked at the hole and grinned. “You could rip them up the rest of the way and I’d be fine with that.”

“I told you I wouldn’t wear them again.” I sniffed. “So what else about your father?”

 
“Well, like I said, my daddy liked to wander.”

“My father likes to wander, too, but it’s not wonderful sounding like yours.”

“I reckon.” She undid her ponytail tied with a piece of leather, gathered up hair that had come out of it into the thick tail, and tied the leather back on. “But your daddy’s with you.”

“I wish my father sailed the world for treasures. It’s so mysterious and wonderful.”

“Sounds that way, don’t it?” She reached up and pulled leaves from a tree, crushed them in her hand, held them to her nose.

“So, where is he now?”

“After his boat was full of wondrous things, he tried to get back to the mountains so we could all live together, but a big storm come and tossed him all over the sea so’s he got lost.”

“Like a shipwreck?”

“Uh huh. Grandpaw said he was on a island all alone, living off coconuts and monkey brains.”

“Eeeww. That’s nasty.”

“Not nasty if you got to fill your belly.”

“Oh. Yeah. So, what next?”

“Daddy got sick and didn’t know where he was. A island native took him in.”

“Sick from monkey brains, I bet.”

She huffed out her air, then, “
Like
I was telling
, they kept him until he got well. After that, he remembered about us.”

“But, how did your grandfather know the stories? I mean, if your father was lost at sea and couldn’t get home and couldn’t remember anything, how?”

“Well, Smarty-Prissy-Pants, Daddy sent a letter to Mama soon as he got well.” She walked with her arms stiff.

“Did she show the letter to you? It might have a return address to know where he was.”

She shrugged.

“Well, what then?”

She didn’t answer.

“Sweetie? What then?”

“He had to go to the war to save
America
.”

“He went to war?”

 
“He got in the jungle and his friend was about to get kilt. When he went to help his friend, he got kilt himself.” Sweetie stopped walking; put her hand over her heart. “He loved my mama and me so much, when he died he had a locket with our pictures in his fist.” She held up her fist. “They buried him right there in the jungle with the locket still held in his hand. A fella brung Mama his army jacket, and that’s all we got of him.” She smiled, and walked again, her arms loose as she swung them.

“Wow. It’s so romantic how he held the locket at the end.”

“Nothing romantic about getting blowed the hell up.” She jumped over a log in the middle of the trail.

I stepped over the log so I wouldn’t bust my backside for the millionth time. “Tell me more about Zemry and the Indians.”

“Do we got to talk the whole way? I never talked this much in my whole life.” She stooped and picked up a rock. “This here rock’s shaped like a owl. I’ll give it to Zemry.” She stuffed it into her pocket, jumped high into the air, grabbed a handful of leaves from a bush, and just as she had before, crushed them in her right hand. She held out the crushed leaves to me. “Smell that.”

I put my nose to the crushed leaves, said, “It smells like summer after the sun’s dried the rain.”

“You got a way of saying things.” She tossed the leaves. “You orter be telling
me
stories.”

We turned a curve in the trail and came upon a tiny shack with an old mule grazing in front. She said, “That there’s Miss Annie.”

“Miss Annie the mule?”

“Uh huh.”

“A mule right in front of us.”

“She don’t like to be called a mule. Just call her Miss Annie.”

“Oh. Okay.” I looked at the shack. It was made of old wood and had a tin roof. “Does Zemry mind us coming?”

Sweetie stopped to pet Miss Annie. “Nuh uh, he don’t mind.”

Miss Annie stood in front of me. “Hey. The mule won’t let me by.”

“You got to pet her or she won’t get out your way. And you got to quit calling her a mule.”

I gave Sweetie a
you’re kidding
look.

 
“For spit’s sake, just give her a pat.”

When I touched her soft and satiny muzzle, she didn’t bite. “I’ve never petted a mule before, I mean, a Miss Annie.”

Sweetie pranced up to the door and knocked once. “You in there, old man?”

A voice boomed from the other side. “That you, Sweetie?”

“Yup.” She turned to me and winked.

The door swung open and I out-right stared, even though it was rude. A real mountain man mixed with Cherokee. Right in front of me.

Sweetie said, “Miss-Lissa here thought you was my
boyfriend
.”

They both burst out laughing, slapping their thighs.

My face heated up, but mostly I was excited. I stepped up to meet my first real Mountain-Cherokee man. Being friends with Sweetie formed my whole world into other shapes. Those shapes were more interesting than the ones Father showed me under his microscopes any old day.

EIGHT

Zemry had wispy gray hair, but his beard was darker, grown all the way to his stomach. He had the beard braided from the middle to almost the end, and the braid was thread with rawhide. Shaggy eyebrows shaded his deep brown eyes. His dungarees were faded from many washings, as was his gray shirt. He stuck a corn-cob pipe in his mouth.

Sweetie said, “What’re you doing with that there pipe?”

Zemry winked big and slow at Sweetie.

Sweetie turned to me. “He likes to tease tourists, right Zemry?”

He grinned big and wide, his teeth still clenched on the pipe stem.

She put her hands on her hips. “Miss Lissa is a
friend
, old man, so get that silly pipe out your mouth.”

Zemry took out the pipe, gave a chuckle while he stuck it in his pocket. “Them tourists like thinking we all’re hillbillies smoking corn cobs and laying around drinking moonshine. I give them what they think they want.”

“Huh,” Sweetie said, “Like I said, this is my friend.”

Zemry nodded, his face turned serious, but his eyes still twinkling.

Sweetie handed him the owl-shaped rock. “I found this for you since you like owls.”

“Wah-doh.” He stood aside from the opened door. “Oh-see-yoh.”

Sweetie walked inside.

Zemry turned to me. “
Osiyo
means hello there and come on in. And when Sweetie gave me the owl I said thank you.” He bowed and motioned for me to come in.

Inside the shack there was only one room that I could tell, but it was scrubbed clean enough that even Mother would be impressed. What caught my attention first was lined on a wall to the left side of the fireplace. Masks, some made of wood, but others I wasn’t sure what they were made of. Zemry led me over to them.

“These was made by my great grandpapa, my grandpapa, and me.” He pointed to a mask with slitted eyes and feathers in the forehead and at the eyebrows. “That one’s made with a gourd, and very very old.” He reached to take down a wood one with a long nose and carved lines in the face. It had a piece of fur on the top of its head. “I made this one out of buckeye. A beaut, huh? I colored it with blood root, just like my grandpapa showed me.” He looked at me. “Like it?”

I nodded.

He asked Sweetie. “Can she speak? Is she deef or dumbed?”

Sweetie laughed, a big bark sound, then said, “For sure she can talk up a storm and she hears you just fine.”

I cleared my throat but I felt shy.

He put the mask back on the wall, and pointed to another one. “That one there’s made from a hornet’s nest.”

Sweetie pointed to one with a bulging nose, bald head, tiny little teeth, and comical face. “Tell her about that one.”

He said, “That’s a booger mask.”

I backed away, finally finding my voice, “Eeeww. It’s made of b-b-boogers?”

Zemry let out a guffaw.

Sweetie put her hand to her mouth and snickered.

 
“Child, that’s what it’s called, not what it’s made up of. The Cherokee made booger masks to poke fun at the Your-peans or some other enemy.” Zemry put on the mask and did a funny dance while Sweetie and I laughed. He took off the mask, grinning as if he had a sudden shy feeling upon him, too, and pulled on his beard. “Them real nice ones over there are called effigy masks. Here’s a effigy mask I made.” He took down another of the wood masks that looked like a bear, put it on, and struck a fierce pose. Through the mask he said, “Now I got the spirit of the bear.”

I pointed to one. “And that one?”

Zemry said, “Wolf clan.
Ah-ni-wa-ya.
”

I knew right then why Sweetie loved to come to Zemry’s place. Other than Sweetie, he was the most interesting person I’d ever met. I looked around the rest of the room. There was a bed with a furry blanket across it, and another colorful cotton blanket folded at the end. Propped against his pillow was a porcelain-faced doll, out of place in all the rough man-stuff. In the fireplace, a big iron pot had something bubbling inside. It smelled good and my stomach growled.

Zemry pointed to my stomach. “I hear a rumbly go rumble in the belly there.”

I shook my head, embarrassed.

He smiled, and I felt stupid for shaking my head.

Sweetie nudged me with her elbow and mouthed,
Breathe in and out
.

“I was just ready to have some that stew, and I’d be lucky if y’uns would have some with me. I got it full of ramps, rabbit, taters, and carrots, and some corn cakes there to sop it with.”

“I sure am hungry,” Sweetie said.

“I guess I am hungry, after all,” I said.

Zemry filled three wooden bowls almost to the top. “I carved these bowls m’self.” He placed what looked like a grainy pancake on top and handed us our bowls. We went outside, sat on a couple of logs set around a big tub of steamy water with glowing ashes underneath.

Sweetie pointed to the tub. “That there’s the tub we used to have to put the hogs in to get their hair off. I helped Zemry with hog killing before.”

I wrinkled my nose. “That’s horrid. I never could kill an animal.”

“A hungry belly makes a person do things they’d rather not but got to.” She bent to her bowl again. Then, “And what you think you eat at your house? Them animals kill theyselves to get on your plate?”

I was ashamed of knowing I had choices. Mother went to the store and bought groceries and I could eat them or I could turn up my nose and decide I’d have something else. Not everybody could do that. I ate my stew and thought on that.

The stew was hot and good, and so were the pancakes, which weren’t sweet, had bits of corn inside, and were thicker than Mother’s pancakes. To drink we had jars of honey-sweetened tea. For a while, the only sounds were birds singing and squirrels chattering and Zemry slurping from his spoon.

When we finished, we rinsed our dishes in a bucket of water, and put the bowls aside to be washed later. Zemry took the dirty water and put out the glowing ashes under the tub of water. He said, “Got some warsh to soak, and I surely do hate that job.”

“You need a woman to do that, Zemry,” Sweetie said. “But not this girl. I’ll do a man’s job any old time. Woman’s jobs are boring.”

“I do a woman’s and a man’s work. Me and my woman used to share the load. God rest her.”

I liked Zemry even more.

From a pail, the old man lifted out apples and handed Sweetie and me one each. While we munched, Zemry and Sweetie talked about animals they’d seen, and what kind of herbs or roots they needed for different sicknesses or arthritis or whatever, how Zemry’s tobacco growing was coming along, and when the berries would be the sweetest. I listened to them, feeling sleepy, and thought it the best place on earth, and how if I were to take a nap on Zemry’s bed, it’d be the softest bed ever there was in the whole world.

Miss Annie nodded her head up and down whenever Zemry spoke. He handed her an apple and she loudly crunched it. He said, “The day after my wife passed on, this old mule showed up and never left.” He whispered when he said,
this old mule
. “I think it’s my wife come back, so I named her the same name.” He looked over at Miss Annie. “My wife was
special
.” He patted her side. “My wife could find water when nobody else could. She always got the weather right. Saw visions, too. Dreamed what would happen to people. Dreamed of her own death so she made me take her to town and buy her a pretty dress to be buried in.”

I said, “I had a cat once came around the day after my great uncle died. I was little and thought it was Uncle Stewart come back to life.”

Zemry leaned towards me. “Was it a black cat with yallar eyes?”

“How’d you know?”

“They’re most always black with yallar eyes when it’s a loved one come back. When my Annie passed, I kept awaiting for the black cat to come, and it never did. So, when
she
showed up,” he threw his thumb towards Miss Annie, “I figured my wife put her spirit into a critter that could do me some good ’stead of a critter don’t do nobody good.” He slapped his knee and laughed.

“I named my cat Stewart.”

“I see now,” Zemry said.

“Yeah, he slept under my window, but he’d never come into the house. My great uncle didn’t like my mother, either.” I took a bite of apple to shut up, but both Zemry and Sweetie looked interested, so I swallowed my chewed apple and went on. “Before he died, Uncle Stewart told me she was wound up tighter than an old broken watch. He said her underwear was on too tight, too.”

Sweetie and Zemry laughed.

Up until then, I hadn’t known I was such a grand storyteller. “One day, Stewart ran over and slashed up Mother’s brand new stockings. She wanted me to catch him and get rid of him, but I never did. Then, Stewart was suddenly gone and never came back, just like my great uncle Stewart. I sure miss him.”

“Well, I bet he misses his girl bad, too.” Zemry yawned, scratched his stomach. “Sometimes they do that, them cats do. Run off to go see the world. Now a dawg won’t leave. He’ll pine on his master’s grave until someone pries him off. I miss my old dawg.” His face fell into folds of wrinkles. “Good old dawg.”

“What was your dog’s name, Zemry?” I asked.

“Dawg.” He laughed, and I didn’t know if he was teasing or not, but he didn’t say anything else.

 
“I had me a cat once.” Sweetie ran, jumped up and swung on a tree limb, and then flung herself onto a stump. From the stump, she jumped back to the limb, and then flopped onto the ground.

“Best be careful there, Bitty One.”

Sweetie did three cartwheels, then she said, “I named my cat Mr. Shitters ’cause he shit all the time. And it was smellier than a skunk fart.”

We all laughed and I thought how I’d never heard so much laughing, and how I’d never seen Sweetie laugh so much. I decided Zemry had Indian magic in him.

Zemry had a little knife he used to cut his apple. He carved out a slice, poked it into his mouth, and around the apple said, “Did I tell you girls about the stickball my great grandpapa played?”

I put my elbows on my knees and leaned forward. Sweetie stopped cartwheeling and sat cross-legged on the ground.

“Well, it weren’t for the faint of heart.” He wiped the knife on his pant leg and stuck the point into the log. “Afore the games started, the medicine man would scratch up my great grandpapa’s back with a turkey bone. Then grandpapa went to the river and warshed the blood off with the rest of the ones who’d be playing the stickball with him. Then, after they warshed the blood off in the river, they’d rub bear grease all over them.”

“Bear grease?” I wrinkled my nose.

“That’s right. They had ways they had to follow and they stayed strict about it. They couldn’t eat no rabbit meat like we just did, or no frogs, and they couldn’t kiss their wives even.” He handed his apple core to Miss Annie. He took from his dungarees’ pocket a pouch and a packet of small, thin pieces of paper. He pulled out a piece of paper, and from the pouch, poured a bit of tobacco near the edge of the paper, rolled it tight, and then slid the homemade cigarette once in and out of his mouth. He fished a match out of his pocket, struck it with his thumb, and after it flared and steadied, he lit the cigarette, drew in, and blew out a stream of smoke. He then said, “Ah, now. I done good on this ’baccy.” He put everything back into his pocket and happily smoked.

I was about to bust with wanting to know more. “How come they did all that, Zemry?”

“Them was their
ways
, Poot Butt
.
” Sweetie pushed my leg. “Let him tell the story how he likes.”