Summer of the Redeemers (6 page)

I was halfway down the long aisle of the barn when the bird swooped in front of me. Although I didn’t scream, I ducked and threw up my arms. Alice laughed, until the bird struck the window at the end of the barn. The thud was so loud, so powerful, that we knew the bird had broken its neck. We’d panicked it and now it was dead.

Turning back, I looked at Alice. She wasn’t laughing any longer.

“Get the Coke, and let’s go back to the tree,” she said, her voice eerie in the barn.

Before my nerve completely disappeared, I turned toward to the last stall. Walking real slow, I pretended each stall had a beautiful horse in it. At the very end was the black, my own horse. It tossed its head and whickered a greeting. Ever since I’d been able to walk I’d wanted a horse. I even begged Mama to get pregnant again because I knew she’d have a foal for me. Mama Betts had told Effie not to indulge me in such foolishness, but for a long time Mama let me believe that it might happen. Until Daddy said that it was cruel to build up my hopes. He said I could have a horse, but Mama said no. She was afraid I’d be hurt. Horses were unpredictable, dangerous, big, capable of bizarre behavior. Mine wouldn’t be, but Effie had no faith in that.

“Hurry up, Bekkah! Quit standing around daydreaming!”

Of course the last stall was empty, except for two old tires, some rotting blankets, an old halter and the three Coca-Colas we’d hidden behind the tires. I got them all, hoping never to make another trip into the barn. At the door, Alice’s shadow extended almost to the middle of the barn. It was growing very late. Bikes or no bikes, we were going to be in trouble.

We made sure to close the barn door just as we’d found it. Although we didn’t have a bottle opener, Alice was able to force the top off one bottle by using the edge of the step. We filled up Maebelle’s bottle, and she took to it with a greedy sucking sound.

“If I had a horse, we’d be home in two minutes flat.”

“If you had a horse, the poor thing would probably be living in your bedroom. Don’t let her have too much too fast.” She motioned for me to pull the bottle out of Maebelle’s mouth. The result, not to my surprise, was a wail of protest. I gave the nipple back to her.

“She’ll gas up and puke on you,” Alice warned, then shrugged. She was constantly amused by my lack of know-how when it came to babies.

“She’s starving to death.”

“Let her digest what she’s had.”

Alice knew her business when it came to babies, so I removed the bottle and contented myself with listening to Maebelle’s angry frustration. We picked up our gear, leaving the two unopened Cokes behind
the chinaberry tree, and started on our way home. Even though we were rested, our steps were slower. Effie would be fit to be tied, worried about me. Mrs. Waltman didn’t seem to worry much, but she’d be mad at the state Maebelle V. was in. She was dirty, soiled, and now beginning to erp and drool. Upchuck was not far behind.

“I’m hungry,” Alice finally said. We’d gone all day without anything to eat. It was close to three.

“Mama Betts will have something good made. Since we’re in trouble, you might as well stop by and have a bite.”

“Maybe we could clean Maebelle up a little.”

“Sure.”

“Maybe we should tell the truth about the bikes.” Alice had no stomach for fibs, or the resulting trouble they always caused.

“If we don’t say anything, we might get the bikes back.”

“If we don’t say anything, that’s not really a lie.”

“Right. And I get a feeling I’ll hear something from that tall skinny boy real soon. Like tonight.”

We’d just come to a big curve in the road. At the sound of a loud motor, we both automatically moved into the sandy ditch and up the bank to high ground. At the curve some of the boys drove wild. If the road was rutted real bad, like it was today, the cars would sometimes begin to jump and quiver on the washboard ruts and the driver would lose control. Then the car would slam into the ditch. Kali Oka curve was good business for the body shops around Jexville.

“That ain’t nobody we know,” Alice said, listening to the voice of the motor. “It’s straining, like it’s big.”

Before I could hypothesize, an old truck pulling a long horse van rounded the curve. I knew what the van was because I’d read about them in my books. The English called them vans or boxes, and Americans called them trailers. When I pretended that I had a horse, I also pretended I was English, like Velvet Brown.

The sun was bearing down right in our eyes, and I couldn’t see in the truck very well. Most of my attention was focused on the van anyway. I couldn’t see anything through the tiny little windows, but when it passed, I might be able to see the horses’ tails, if it was loaded.

“Look!” Alice squeezed my arm and pulled me around to look behind us.

A skinny little arm poked out to left-hand-turn, and the truck and
trailer disappeared down the chinaberry driveway of the old McInnis place.

“Are they moving in?” I could hardly breathe.

Before Alice could answer, there was a loud scream from a horse. Not panic or fear, but a call, as if the horse was hoping for another horse to answer.

Picket’s interest picked up immediately. Her ears stood up and quivered, and I knew I had to get her home. The thick chinaberry trees blocked our view, but we stood for a moment longer listening.

Several horses called in that wild, anxious manner. I knew just how their nostrils would flare and the forelock would hang wild in their eyes. Then there was the sound of a metal door banging open and a woman’s voice shouting commands.

“Let’s go,” Alice said. She grinned. “I’ve been praying that something would happen to take your mind off those Redeemer folks. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”

Six

W
ELL,
you girls look like you bathed in sweat and powdered with Kali Oka dust.” Mama Betts took the baby from Alice with a look that spoke her displeasure. “What have you been doing with this child, using her for a kick ball? I’ve never seen the like. Thunderation, her little tummy is tight as a drum with gas, and she smells like she hasn’t been bathed or changed in a week. There should be a law …”

She took Maebelle V. and walked into the house with her, headed straight for the bathroom and a soapy tub. As soon as she’d passed through the kitchen, Alice and I hit the refrigerator. There was part of a coconut custard pie and some cold milk. We ate out of the pie tin, not even bothering with saucers. Then we moved on to some bread and pimento cheese spread that Mama Betts had made up fresh that morning. She put olives in it, my favorite way. And though I liked it toasted in the oven, I didn’t bother with the niceties. We were too hungry for such.

“Where were you girls at lunch?” Effie had walked quietly into the kitchen from her study. Her glasses were down her nose, and her hair was curls all standing on end. I could see where she’d been dragging her fingers through her hair as she wrote. Whenever I did that, she fussed at me and said I’d make myself bald. My hair wasn’t as curly as hers, and I wore it in braids.

“We went for a swim,” I answered around the half of sandwich I’d stuffed in my mouth.

“I was beginning to think you’d drowned.”

“We had a little trouble with the bikes on the way home. Somebody moved in the old McInnis place. A woman with horses.” “Horses?”

Alice looked from me to Effie and back. Before I could answer she jumped in. “Yes, ma’am, she had a big old truck and a trailer filled with horses. They were all crying and screaming when she pulled up at that place.” Alice stopped when I kicked her under the table.

“They weren’t really screaming. They were just talking.”

“Forget it, Bekkah.”

“Forget what?”

“The idea that you’re going down to the old McInnis place.”

Effie knew how bad I wanted to ride. I could see how much it scared her to think about it. She’d been dragged once as a young girl and almost killed. She was deathly afraid of horses, and she just didn’t want me around them at all. She didn’t seem to want me to do anything that was new or fun. Even Mama Betts said so when they thought I was asleep.

“I’d better get the baby and go on home to help Mama with supper.” Alice stood up, picked up her napkin and threw it in the trash. She wasn’t about to mix in the great horse war that was raging between me and Effie. She hurried from the room to the back of the house, where Mama Betts was playing with the baby.

“I’m telling you right up front: stay away from those horses.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I rolled my crumbs into a little ball and mashed it into the tablecloth.

“Emily Welford called and said she had some new potatoes and okra if you or Arly would come pick it.”

“I’ll go as soon as Alice leaves.”

“Take Emily a jar of the strawberry preserves Mama Betts put up.”

“Okay. Where’s Arly?” I didn’t mind digging the potatoes, but the okra made my hands itch and burn. I wanted either Arly or his gloves.

“He’s running an errand for me in Jexville.”

“In town?” He would be sitting at the drugstore sipping on a fountain Coke and reading a comic book in the Kool air-conditioned store. “How’d he get to town?”

“I took him right after lunch. We looked for you, but we couldn’t find you.”

That was it, then. It was my fault that I was walking down Kali Oka in the hot sand with the sun scorching the part on my head while Arly was living it up in town.

“See you tomorrow.” Alice walked back into the kitchen with a much cleaner and happier baby in her arms. Mama Betts had also supplied her with a fresh bottle of evaporated milk, water and a little sugar. The baby was sucking and gurgling with contentment.

“Are we still on for swimming?” I made it sound like we’d talked it over.

Alice looked at me as if I’d turned into a toad. She knew we weren’t going to walk all the way to the end of Kali Oka again. And we didn’t have our bikes.

“Swimming?”

“At eleven. The picnic, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, the picnic.”

Effie watched us, but she didn’t say anything for a moment. “Maybe Mama Betts will pack a lunch for you.” She turned and left the room.

“She doesn’t believe us,” Alice hissed. She clamped my shoulder with her hand. “She knows we’re lying.”

“She thinks it’s the horses.” I knew she did. She thought I’d spent part of the day at the old McInnis place. I knew the look of disappointment on her face at the idea that I hadn’t told her the truth.

“What are we going to do?”

“Give those boys a chance to redeem their shirts.” I could imagine how the scene would go. It would be sweet revenge to make those boys say uncle. We’d have our bicycles back in a flash, and then I’d tell them where to find their shirts.

“Be sure you leave Picket at home. They might try to hurt her.”

Of all the disturbing things I’d ever thought, it had never crossed my mind that someone would hurt Picket to get at me, until today. It had already happened. Alice was right.

“Meet me in the woods at ten. That should give us a chance to walk a ways down the road and find a good picnic spot.”

“And those boys will find us, right?”

“If they’re smart they will.” And if they weren’t, then I’d have to bring Arly into my confidence. Arly, sitting at the drugstore counter. Effie must have given him money to spend, too, ‘cause he’d already gone through his allowance and tried to borrow some from me.

“See you at ten.” Alice let the screen door slam behind her as she took off for home, humming a little song to the baby in her arms.

After Alice left I went to Emily’s for the potatoes and okra. There would probably be peas and corn too. She had a daughter my age, Jamey Louise, who hated picking vegetables. Emily always sent her out in the field to help me, but all she ever did was dig her bare toes into the hot dirt and complain.

Emily and Gustav, her husband, and their three daughters, Jamey Louise being the youngest, lived about a mile down from us on the right side of the road. Gustav, better known as Big Gus, worked as a carpenter at a factory, and he farmed forty acres on the side. Emily, who was nearly six feet tall and had the biggest chest in all of Chickasaw County, put up a lot of vegetables and was always real generous to share with us. We in turn gave her lots of fruit and preserves and pecans from our trees. Daddy didn’t farm, but Mama Betts had a way with fruit and nut trees and berries. When nobody else in the county had pecans, we did. Big old Stuarts and those long papershells with hulls so thin anybody could crack them.

There was talk that Libby Ruth, the oldest girl, gave Emily a lot of trouble. Libby liked nice things. She liked boys and fast cars, and she liked to laugh. She was homecoming queen last year, and she looked more beautiful than any other girl in school even though she was taller than a lot of the boys. She was always real nice to me, even when a lot of the high school kids were around. She drove the tractor in the field in her two-piece swimsuit and had the best suntan of anyone near Jexville. I thought she should be on television, and I told her so, which made Jamey Louise squinch up her face and pinch me. She said I shouldn’t encourage Libby in that kind of thinking because all she ever did was read magazines and listen to the radio as it was.

Walking over to Emily’s, I hoped Libby would be at home. There were four Welfords in all, but Buck, the oldest, was long gone, working the oil fields in Texas and making a fortune. Mama Betts said he was the handsomest young man she’d ever seen, but I hardly remembered him at all. The middle girl, Cora, was pretty too, but she wasn’t as much fun as Libby, or as tall. And Jamey was no fun at all and the runt of the litter. It was like the juices had all been spent on Libby. She had all the best of the looks and a happy way. The others just sort of dribbled along after her, even though Jamey Louise was thought by
all the schoolboys to be a real dish and it looked like she was going to take after her mother’s chest. I didn’t bother to go in the house when I got there. I got the shovel from the shed and found a pail and headed toward the long rows of potatoes.

I liked the way Gus’s shovel felt. The handle was worn smooth, as finely worked as if someone had rubbed it down with sandpaper. Arly’s gloves weren’t in his top dresser drawer, so I was working bare-handed. Gus had taught me the art of “tater diggin’ “ and said I had a natural feel for it. The tip of the shovel was placed about eight inches from the plant and then pushed down with a smooth thrust of the foot. When the dirt was turned, the potatoes were clumped up in it. The smell of the earth was rich, warm and somehow comforting. Even the feel of the sun on my shoulders and back was pleasant. Over toward the house I caught sight of Picket trying to ambush one of Emily’s guineas. Good luck, Picket. Those mean old guineas would turn on her in a second and send her scooting for the safety of the potato patch. As I watched the hen spun around and launched herself at my dog, old leathery chicken claws extended. Picket was in it more for the sport than the kill, and she didn’t have the heart to pursue the game. Tail tucked, she came back out to my side and laid down in the row where I’d just turned the earth up.

“Mama says to tell you there’s fresh lemonade.”

Wiping the sweat from my eyes, I looked up to see Jamey Louise standing at the end of the row. She had on a dress and lipstick. A big straw bonnet protected her face.

“You’d better get you a hat or those freckles are going to get thicker and thicker until you look like a monkey, or one of those Waltman girls.”

“I like freckles.” I liked Alice’s freckles, but I hated the ones that were across my nose and were slowly growing on my shoulders and arms.

“Freckles are ugly, and none of the magazines recommend them.”

“That’s too bad, Jamey Louise.” I stepped down on the shovel and realized too late I was too close to the potato mound. I could feel the blade as it sliced several taters in half. “Why don’t you give me a hand with this, and we can dig some for Emily while we’re at it?”

“I hate potatoes. They’re nothing but dirt.”

“What’s wrong with dirt?” I was goading her and we both knew it.

“One day I’m gonna live in a big house with white columns and a marble dance floor imported from Italy. We’ll never serve potatoes, or butter beans, or peas at my house.”

Jamey Louise considered herself a tap dancer of great talent. The boys loved to watch her because it looked like some wild animal was loose in her sweater. “What are you going to eat, hamburgers and ice cream?”

“French qui-sine.” She dared me to comment. “Libby says that President Kennedy and the First Lady have a cook who prepares French qui-sine. Mrs. Kennedy also has a French designer who makes her special clothes. They come all the way from France.”

“Why would an American president’s wife want clothes that came from France? Seems like she’d want to wear American clothes.” I had a mental picture of a very neat dark-haired woman with this dorky little round hat on top of her puffed-out hair.

“You have no couth, Rebekah Rich. You’ll never get a boyfriend.” Jamey linked her hands behind her back. “There are some cute boys down at that church, but Libby says they’re a waste of time.”

Shovel tip in the ground, I stopped and looked at her. This was a new gambit from Jamey Louise. What was she driving at?

“Libby said the boys from the church don’t have cars or money. She said even if they are cute, they’re a waste. Do you think they’re a waste?”

“I suspect Libby knows more about boys than I do.” Jamey Louise had rocks in her head if she was interested in boys who would beat on a helpless dog and steal bicycles, but those weren’t facts I felt free to divulge to her.

“There’s this one boy, tall with dark hair. I saw him this afternoon riding by—”

“On a bicycle?” I dropped five potatoes in the bucket and determined that I had enough for me and the Welfords for supper. I could move on to the okra.

“Yeah. It was a girl’s bike, though.”