The Day of Small Things (19 page)

I try to turn away from him but he grabs my chin and pulls my face around. He leans down, staring puzzled-like, and the smell of burning and rot and whisky is strong in my nose. His eyebrows are working up and down as he studies me. The light from the vehicle passes off but he goes on staring. Then, slow and deliberate, he pulls open my suit jacket and feels of my chest.

“I be goddamn,” he whispers and rips open my shirt. “Looks like the bird is trying to fly the coop. But I believe I can find a cage for you. I’ll enjoy you a time and then …”

I know him then for a Raven Mocker like Granny Beck had told of and start to holler but my mouth is dry with fear and only a little croak come out. He laughs, and while I am trying to work up a scream, he pulls out a big old bandana handkerchief from his pocket and wads it into my mouth. Then he picks me up with one arm and begins to carry me over towards the big rocks they call the Injun Grave. I kick and struggle and try to spit out the bandana that is gagging me, but he don’t pay no more mind than a daddy carrying a naughty child.

“Oh, Redbird Ray, I’ve got you now,” he whispers, and the fingers of his free hand are busy at my clothing. “Won’t do you no good to scream or get away nohow. You think any of them up there would lift a finger to help you? Your boss, him that you’re trying to run out on? Or all them fellers who been spending their money in the dance downs, just in hopes of getting first chance with you? Maybe you think some of the girls—”

He stops talking and cocks his head. There is a big commotion up at the Stand and I figure they must have found that I am gone, but though the sheriff casts a glance up that way, he just keeps walking.

On the far side of the rocks, he drops me down in the grass. Holding me with one hand around my neck, he fumbles with my trouser buttons. I kick and wiggle, trying to get free, but he hits me in the face and then tightens his hold on my throat. I might as well be a mouse, held by a giant cat.

As his mouth and fingers move over my body, prying, biting, twisting, hurting, I think of trying to use the Gifts and Powers, but with the gag in my mouth I can’t sing the Calling Song nor say the spells. If Granny could hear
me … and I send my thoughts after her but I guess I am too far from her resting place.

I seek in my mind for Nancy Goingsnake—if this is her grave, might be she would help her great-great-granddaughter. My thoughts go wandering, leaving my poor body in the grass, and now I am two people. One is a helpless, naked squirming thing held down and tormented by the sheriff; the other is a spirit, wandering through a lonely spirit world, a world that is empty but for shadows that swirl and dance around me.

But if Nancy Goingsnake was ever in this place, she ain’t now. With a jolt my spirit self is back in the white twisting body and I am struggling to breathe. My nose is filled with blood from when he hit me and I am choking on the gag. There is a roaring in my head and the noise up at the Stand grows louder. The sheriff stops what he was doing and puts up his head to listen.

“I believe they’re feeling cheated of their prize, Redbird. Kind of the way I felt when you wouldn’t go upstairs with me,” he says and reaches to undo his own trouser buttons. “And now I’m gonna break you in good, you little cock tease. When I’m done, maybe I’ll let those fellers up there have my leavings. Reckon you won’t be so choicey after this.”

And he is on me again, tearing at my breasts with his teeth and pushing my legs apart with his knees, when all at once there is a sound like an axe hitting a big log and the sheriff lets out a great
Uuhhh
and falls against me. I am most crushed with the weight of him but he just lays there, not moving. Then I feel him sliding off me to one side and I look up to see Mr. Aaron holding what must be an axe handle.

“Your face—the blood,” he says and puts out a hand,
then draws it back like he don’t want to touch me. “Are you hurt bad?”

I set up and pull out the gag, using it to daub at my face. I take a deep breath and the damp night air is a healing wonder to me.

“It’s just a nosebleed,” I tell him. “I ain’t bad hurt.”

Mr. Aaron turns his back on me and says, “Then get your clothes on and hurry. The sheriff isn’t dead and we have to be on our way before he wakes up.”

Mr. Aaron’s voice is just as calm as if this ain’t nothing new to him, and I make haste to do like he says. The teddy that I had on is all ripped to shreds and most of the buttons is popped loose from the shirt but I pull it closed and then get the trousers and suit coat back on.

“I thought he was you—” I start to say but, still not looking at me, Mr. Aaron raises one hand. His voice trails over his shoulder, low and steady as he sets off walking.

“No talking; my automobile is here. This way.”

I follow him from behind the big rocks and across the field to where a black automobile is standing. I wonder was it the same one that shone its headlights on me and then I wonder at Mr. Aaron having such a vehicle but I stay quiet like he told me.

And when we are closer and I see a black man step out of the car and open the back door for me, I still don’t say nothing, just climb in and lean back on the seat. It seems my life is changing yet again.

Mr. Aaron climbs into the front seat beside the driver. He twists around and hands me a flask over the seat. “Drink this,” he says, “all of it.”

Somehow I don’t question; just do as he says, and the drink slides down my throat strong as fire and sweet as mountain honey. The car starts and heads up the road,
past the Stand, where I can see people swarming over the porches and all around. There are folks with battery flashlights roaming around in the dark, shining them into those big boxwoods and everywhere I ain’t. I see the boss on the front steps, waving his arms and hollering.

And then we are around the curve and on the road climbing above the Stand house and I look down and all the people get smaller and smaller as we move farther and farther away. The bobbing flashlights look like so many big lightning bugs and then we take another curve and they blink out.

“That should be the last you’ll see of Gudger’s Stand,” says Mr. Aaron. “It’d not be wise for you to cross its threshold again—not for a very long time.”

“Mr. Aaron,” I say, with the boldness the drink has put into me, “when the snow flies, I got to go back—not to Gudger’s Stand, but across the river and back up to Dark Holler. I got to—”

“You have an appointment with your young man; I know,” he says, “but that’s some months away. Will you trust me to arrange it for you? I can send Rafe with the auto to transport you when the time comes.”

I am so wore out, with the week of dance downs and the struggle with the sheriff, that it ain’t in me to argue. I lay back against the seat and watch the side of the road slide by—dark woods and fields with every now and then a sleeping house and its barns and outbuildings. There is lamplight shining at the window in one of the houses and I wonder why—a sick child? A husband not come home yet?

The driver tilts his head towards the house with the lamp, and as if he’d been asked some question, Mr. Aaron says, “After we get this child settled.”

“How do you know the sheriff ain’t killed?” I ask. “And even if he ain’t, there’s like to be trouble.”

The car is turning off the main road down a narrow track to the right. Mr. Aaron swings around to face me.

“There are some useful things to be learned in a long life,” says he, “and one is how to kill or not kill with a blow. Another lesson learned is the power of a strong man’s vanity. High Sheriff Hudson won’t be telling the story of what happened tonight. Nonetheless, you will do well to stay clear of him and the Stand and all its denizens till your appearance is very much altered. And that’s why I’m leaving you here—Miss Inez and Miss Odessa will take good care of you till your appointment at snow fly.”

We have stopped in the narrow road between a house on the left and a barn and some sheds on the right. In this house too an oil lamp is in the window. Mr. Aaron gets out and pulls open the door.

“This is the place,” he says. “I’ve taken a room for you and you’ll be safe here till your young man comes back.”

I think of how I look, dressed in a man’s suit and it all bloody and torn, my hair full of shoe polish, my nose—and I touch it careful, feeling it all swole and crusted with dried blood.

“Mr. Aaron,” I say, looking towards the porch of the house. There in the pale light of the waning moon I see two women. They have long robes wrapped around them and they stand still as stone. “What will they think? And how can I pay—I have some put by but it ain’t much—”

He waves his hand back and forth like he was shooing off my words. “The Misses Henderson are excellent women—they don’t ask questions and they know how to keep a secret. As for payment, Miss Inez would be glad of help in the house and the kitchen. They occasionally take
boarders and have just one now—a quiet-living Presbyterian who has never set foot in that place you’ve just left.”

He beckons me out of the automobile and I hobble after him up to the porch. I am burning and aching all over and my nose, which feels like it is the size of a mush-melon, is throbbing. Every step I take hurts me. I wish I could go hide myself in the woods but it is too late, the sisters have seen me and are hurrying down to take me by the arms and help me up the steps. It is easier going with them on either side of me and for a moment I wonder why it is that, kind as he is, Mr. Aaron had never offered to take my hand, not to help me off the ground nor out of the car.

But the thought vanishes as the sisters, clucking like a pair of hens, bustle me around to a side door and into the house.

T
he sisters are called Odessa and Inez and I reckon it was them Granny Beck was telling me would keep me safe—not Francine and Lola. Odessa is twenty-six years of age and works at the Dewell Hill Mercantile. Inez is some younger and she will tell you that she does all the work at home. She has bad headaches some of the time and it is good that I am there to help for they is always a world of things to keep up with. But in the evenings we set on the porch and Inez picks her guitar while we sing or we all play Pollyanna which is a game the sisters have taught me. I am learning to cook all kinds of things that Mama never had time for like corn pudding and Jell-O. Jell-O is the most fun to eat and I like it almost as good as the Popsicles Odessa brings from the store.

From that very first night they have been awful kind to me—taking me in and not asking one question, not about my ripped and dirty clothes, nor why I was wearing a man’s suit nor nothing.

“This young lady’s name is Birdsong,” Mr. Aaron said as we all went into the big kitchen on the bottom floor of the house. “And she’s in need of sanctuary—as well as your dressmaking skills, Miss Inez and Miss Odessa.” And he made a little bow to each of them.

The two didn’t turn a hair. “They’re asleep upstairs,” the smaller of the two women said, “and when we heard you were coming, Inez and I waited out on the porch so as to bring you in this way. Down here we don’t have to worry about waking Mama.”

They pulled out a chair from the big kitchen table for me to set down. The big one studied me hard and then, without a word, went and got a dishtowel. She ran some cold water from the sink on it before she come over and handed it to me.

“Lay that against your nose,” says she. “It’ll help to bring the swelling down.”

I knowed I was a sight on earth, my face all smeared with blood and shoe polish, and the men’s clothes I had on torn and dirty. But Miss Odessa just said, “I’ll get you one of my nightgowns and a robe. After Mr. Aaron leaves, you can get cleaned up a bit.”

The one called Inez set a zinc tub on the floor, and after she had stirred up the coals in the woodstove, she slid a great big kettle over to where it would begin to heat. Mr. Aaron commenced to look uneasy-like and started to back towards the door.

“A bath will be the very thing, don’t you agree, Miss Birdsong? And, as you are in good hands, I’ll make my farewells. Ladies, Miss Odessa, Miss Inez, my respects to your mother.”

He pulled a long manila envelope from a pocket inside his coat and laid it on the kitchen table. “Four months’
room and board at the usual rate … and a bit extra for clothing and … ah … toiletries.”

“Mr. Aaron,” I called out as he made for the door, “where are you going?” For all at once it seemed to me that I was losing the last link to who I had been. He had called me Birdsong and it suited me fine to leave Redbird Ray behind at the river, just as I had left Least. But it worried me to see him leave.

“Where are you going?” I asked again, “And when will you be back?”

He paused at the door. “I—or if not I, my driver—will be back just before the snow flies to take you across the river. Till then, I have other obligations to fulfill. You’ll be safe here, Miss Birdsong.”

And he lifted his hat and was gone.

Time is like a river, Granny Beck told me, and most of us is in that river, swept along with no way of stopping or turning back. But they is some few what walks the banks of that river, up and down, stopping or going at their own pleasure. I believe that Mr. Aaron is one of these and I believe that I will see him again.

My bruises healed and Inez and Odessa fixed me up fine with some nice clothes. They taught me how to cut out a dress and how to use a sewing machine. Law, they was so much I didn’t know about the ordinary way of life. Those girls stayed busy with all manner of things—games and books and picking the guitar and piecing quilts and I don’t know what all.

And they both of them keep these little diaries that they write in every day, come what may, as Odessa says. They are the cutest little books with locks on them so can’t no
one look at what they write. But Inez has showed me hers. It is a little small thing and it is for five years, so there is not room but for one or two lines for each day.

I would admire to have one of these books but there ain’t none at the store right now. Odessa says they only get them in around Christmastime. But she has give me a speckledy black and white composition book, with lines ruled in it, and I am writing down things just like the sisters do.