Night Bird Calling

by Cathy Gohlke

  I don’t know if this is what you call legal and binding, but it’s my will and I want it done.

  My name is Alma Tatum Chree, and my money sock goes to Marshall, the nephew of Olney Tate. Marshall, you are one of the finest young men it has been my pleasure to know in this life. Use this money to get away from here and begin a good life. Don’t look back. You are made for more than you will find in No Creek. If my son had lived, I would have wanted him to grow like you and your uncle, Olney Tate.

  This cabin and all the rest of its contents go to my young friend Lilliana Grace. Your aunt Hyacinth Belvidere owned the land and now I guess you do, so it’s rightfully yours anyway, and don’t nobody interfere with my wishes. Lilliana, use my cabin as a place to get away and meet your God, dream the dreams you have not allowed yourself to dream. Don’t let nobody keep you from it.

  Tell that preacher over to Saints Delight to bury me beside my Shadrach on the mountain and say words over me. Never mind that I wouldn’t attend his church. I found God on His own mountain. No church building could hold me after that. Let there be singing when they remember me, come spring, but no crying. I won’t have it. I have lived a good life. Now I go to a better one.

  Granny Chree

  I breathed deeply, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry. It better be laughing, as you’ve given us all orders not to cry. But how can I help it? How can we? The vessel that lay empty in that bed had housed a treasure beyond knowing, beyond realizing until it was taken from us—from me.

  I straightened the covers over Granny’s feet, kissed her cheek, and blew out the lamp. Closing the window, I took her will and the money sock and left by the door, leaving it unbarred, as Granny had always done. I made it home just before the snow began to fly.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  JESSE SORROWED for the loss of Granny Chree but was glad to help Lilliana with her necessary errands—first to visit Reverend Pierce, who promised to see to Granny’s wishes, though he couldn’t guarantee no crying come her service in the spring. Granny had been a longtime fixture in No Creek, beloved and needed at one time or another by nearly every family, whether or not they owned up to her doctoring.

  “She was a force to reckon with, that woman was. Lived through slavery days, Reconstruction, and now Jim Crow, never once bending to an earthly soul, far as I know. Must have been over a hundred,” Reverend Pierce guessed.

  “A hundred and three this spring.” Lilliana spoke quietly. “And the wisest woman after Aunt Hyacinth that I’ve ever known. I will sorely miss her.”

  Jesse nodded, his heart too full to add a thing. “I’m sorry to rush this in any way, Lilliana, Reverend Pierce, but we’d best make our other stops before the snow gets too deep.”

  “That’s right. You all go on now. My Marion and I’ll see to Granny Chree as soon as the snow stops. We’ll see that she’s buried right where she says. I know the spot. And we’ll plan a service come the spring thaw.”

  “When the lilacs bloom.” Lilliana looked him in the eye. “She loved lilacs.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Reverend Pierce grinned. “She told me once that God must have known we humans couldn’t abide such divine beauty for long—that’s why their growing season’s so short.”

  “Mama!” Lilliana whispered.

  Jesse saw Lilliana’s hand go to her throat as if capturing a sob—something more than the beauty in the thought the reverend had repeated. He hoped someday she’d share whatever it was with him.

  He helped her down the reverend’s snow-covered path and into the car he’d borrowed from Dr. Vishnevsky the day before. “I’d best drop you off at Garden’s Gate before going on to Dr. Vishnevsky’s and returning his car. The snow’s getting too deep.”

  “No. I want to place this into Marshall’s hands myself. I don’t mind walking back.”

  Jesse pressed the clutch and put the car in gear. He knew better than to argue with such a woman, but he had no intention of letting Lilliana Grace Swope walk a mile on slippery roads in the snow. He was sure the good doctor would agree.

  They reached Dr. Vishnevsky’s just as dusk gathered. Jesse turned to Lilliana. “You’ve got to be bone weary.”

  “I must do this. I won’t rest until I do.”

  He smiled. “You grow more like Miz Hyacinth every day.”

  Lilliana’s smile lit her face and Jesse’s heart. With renewed energy he set the parking brake and ran to her side of the car, pulling a blanket from the backseat to cover her head and shoulders as best he could as they fought their way toward the doctor’s house. Boxes of old newspapers and scrap metal—coat hangers and aluminum pots—stood in rows beneath the overhang on the doctor’s porch, ready for Tuesday’s collection of scrap metal to be used in the manufacture of war materials. No one could question Dr. Vishnevsky’s support of the war effort.

  Even before they knocked on the door, they heard laughter from the front room. Dr. Vishnevsky opened the door, his face wreathed in smiles Jesse had seldom seen. “Come in! Come in! You must be frozen through. Take off your shoes and stockings and set them by the fire to dry. I have the teakettle boiling.”

  In the front room lay Marshall on a camel-backed settee, smiling just as big as the doctor. Both men surprised Jesse and did his heart good. “You two look in far better form than I expected.”

  “Marshall is good medicine for me,” Dr. Vishnevsky chuckled. “I did not realize how long it’s been since good company sat at my table.”

  “Or how you will miss him,” Lilliana offered.

  “Miss him? Oh no, my dear. Marshall and I have decided he will be the perfect boarder here—my assistant—as soon as he’s done being my patient! He has an eye and heart for healing and for helping others.” Dr. Vishnevsky beamed. “Sit, sit. I’ll bring the tea.”

  Jesse waited until the doctor left the room to look at Lilliana. He didn’t want to usurp her news or the gift of Granny Chree, nor did he want to destroy the spark of happiness before him. Lilliana looked taken off guard, too.

  “What is it?” Marshall caught their reservation first. “Uncle Olney? Aunt Mercy? They all right? Did they—?”

  “I saw the family yesterday. Olney’s going to be fine. He’s resting well. Says he’ll be nearly right as rain by the New Year, as long as that leg heals straight.”

  “That’s good. That’s good,” Marshall said, but the joy had left his face. “Do you think they’ll come back, Reverend? Doc thinks not—at least that what he say, but I don’t know.”

  Jesse sighed. “I hope not. Troy was the biggest instigator, near as I can tell, and Rhoan and the sheriff personally drove him to Winston-Salem’s recruitment office. They waited till they saw him enlist and arranged for him to stay with a friend of the sheriff’s until he’s taken in by the Army, so at least he’s gone. You can thank the good doctor for that.”

  “I do,” Marshall vowed. “He told me what Troy done to Ruby Lynne.”

  “It was terrible—wicked of him. But it’s out in the open now. There’s still the thefts to contend with. Troy adamantly denied having anything to do with those.”

  “I didn’t steal a thing, Reverend Willard. I swear it.”

  “I believe you, Marshall. I’m not sure they do. It helps that Troy’s gone, but the truth is, I just don’t know what to expect from them, especially once they get drinking.” Jesse hated saying that. It was as if he’d pushed the warmth from the room.

  “Marshall, there’s something we came to tell you,” Lilliana began. “Granny Chree thought the world of you, you know.”

  “And I think the world of her. She’s a fine woman.” Marshall hesitated, then looked as if he feared what was coming. “What you mean, ‘thought’?”

  “I found Granny Chree in her cabin earlier today.” Lilliana swallowed. Jesse saw that she was unable to continue.

  “Don’t be sayin’ that.” Marshall shook his head as if she could take back words, turn back time.

  “She left a will.” Lilliana pulled the folded paper from
her pocket. “I want you to read it—read it for yourself.” She handed Marshall the paper.

  Marshall stumbled through the words and Granny Chree’s chicken scratch handwriting. His eyes filled and he swiped his sleeve at the moisture. Lilliana handed him the money sock, stuffed to the gills with coins and bills.

  “Why she do that? Why she do that for me?”

  “She loved you,” Lilliana spoke quietly. “She saw good in you that we all see. Why wouldn’t she?”

  Dr. Vishnevsky walked in at that moment with a tray of cups and saucers, a pot of tea, and some kind of sweet bread. He stopped in the middle of the room, sensing the change.

  “Granny Chree passed this morning.” It was all Jesse needed to say.

  Dr. Vishnevsky set the tray down heavily.

  Marshall handed Granny’s will to the doctor. Dr. Vishnevsky read it and smiled again. He took his glasses from his face, his smile fading to wistfulness. “She’s right, you know. Granny Chree was always right. As much as I want you to stay, this is no place for you, my friend. You deserve better than this town is ready to offer you.”

  “Nowhere could I find better friends than I’ve found here.” Marshall’s words were choked. “You and Ruby Lynne taught me to read, Miss Lilliana. And, Doc, you give me a home and hope for new work.”

  “Those are only beginnings of the good things ahead,” Lilliana insisted. “But I think Granny’s right. It could be safer for you—somewhere else.”

  “I’ll think on it.” Marshall turned away, unwilling, Jesse knew, to let Lilliana see the wrinkle in his chin.

  Chapter Seventy

  NEWS OF GRANNY’S PASSING hit Garden’s Gate hard.

  “I can hardly believe she’s gone,” Celia’s mama declared over supper. “Seemed like she’d be with us forever.”

  Miss Lill nodded. Celia’s heart lay heavy, and Chester looked like he couldn’t take one more piece of bad news.

  “She lived a good long life. I reckon it was her time. The good Lord knows what He’s doin’,” her daddy tried to comfort them. Celia shrugged him off. What did he know of Granny Chree and all she’d done to help at Garden’s Gate, for Miss Lill and Ruby Lynne and for Celia and the McHones, for the whole of No Creek, what she’d meant to them? He hadn’t even been around for two years.

  Celia had done her best to avoid being alone with her daddy since his return from prison. She didn’t know what to say to him, and she’d grown beyond the games of hide-and-seek they’d played before he went away. Chester kept a wary eye, but she could tell her brother was glad, with a feeble hope, to have a man in the house, his daddy to look up to. Secretly Celia dared him to break her brother’s heart and swore what she’d do if he did.

  She was thankful for her job at the store, especially with school letting out till the New Year. If she took her time and dawdled on her way home, stopped by the church shed with a thing or two for the McHones, she could get home just as the family sat down to supper and excuse herself to read in her room right after the dishes were done. Nobody stopped her. Nobody questioned. Everybody was trying to find their own space in the newness of it all.

  Celia had just dumped the contents of her dustpan into the store’s rubbish bin and stashed her broom when she glimpsed her daddy out the window. She hadn’t known him to venture outside Garden’s Gate since he’d returned, though that morning he’d talked on replacing the singed shingles on the house roof. Maybe he was really going to do it. Maybe he’d come to the store to buy them. If he was trying to help, be part of the family, then she could meet him partway—she wanted to meet him partway. Maybe she’d walk home with him after all.

  Celia took her time pulling on her coat, finding the buttons, expecting her daddy to walk through the door any moment. Three or four minutes passed and he didn’t come. Finally she peered out the window again. Dusk was settling in, but she saw him down by the street talking to a man. They seemed to be friendly, but Celia couldn’t tell who it was, couldn’t see their faces clearly, just their backs and coat collars pulled high to caps. She saw her daddy knead the back of his neck—a thing he did when considering something. After a time, her daddy turned toward the man and shook hands. The tall one handed over a brown paper sack, which her daddy tucked beneath his coat.

  Knots formed in Celia’s stomach. She’d heard her mama talk to her daddy about getting a job, even if he had to go away to do it. They needed the money if they were ever going to make it on their own again. But this didn’t look like talk about a job her mama would approve.

  Celia turned away from the window. She could march out there and take her daddy’s hand. She could tell him to stay clear of men handing out brown paper sacks that fit inside a man’s coat. But did she want to? If he was running hooch again, he’d surely be caught, maybe go away for an even longer time. Then Celia and Chester and their mama could stay at Garden’s Gate, stay with Miss Lill in her house of books and music and peace, for good. Maybe she should just let things play out.

  While Celia was considering, the bell jingled over the opening door. Rhoan Wishon walked in. She no longer needed to guess who her daddy’d been talking to or what he wanted.

  Celia lit out for home, forgetting about the packet of bologna and crackers she’d planned to take to the McHones. Every step of the way her heart beat flickers of anger and spite, disappointment mingled with determination for revenge.

  By the time she reached Garden’s Gate’s back door, it was dark. She could see her mama and Miss Lill through the kitchen window putting supper together, her daddy standing in the hall doorway, smiling and chatting with a confidence he’d not shown since coming back. Celia hated him for the deceit of it, and she hated that her heart brimmed over with anger and frustration.

  She turned away, wished she could run away. She found a spot on the woodpile, a place around the corner of the porch sheltered from the wind whipping down the mountain but with a full view of the night sky. Stars in their trillions danced with clarity. Too many to wish upon, and Celia knew that wishing did no good.

  God, I know You’re out there. I know You see. What do I do, Lord? How can I stop him? He’s gonna break Mama’s heart all over again. He’s gonna shame Chester and me in school—again. He’s gonna take to drinking and runnin’ ’shine and get caught. It’ll go on forever. I don’t want him to go down, God. I want my daddy to be a daddy . . . even if it means we leave Garden’s Gate. I just want a home, with real parents who love me and Chester, and no hooch. No Wishons. No Klan. Please, God, show me what to do. I know You see me sittin’ here. I know You saw what went on down at the store. And please, God, help Clay and Charlene. They’ve got a baby on the way and I can’t take care of them much longer, but You can. Amen.

  That night, after everyone had gone to bed, Celia heard her parents whispering on the other side of the wall—intense and angry, her mama pleading and getting louder by the minute, then low swearing by her daddy and quiet threats by her mama. Celia had no doubt what their argument was over. She rolled over to face the wall and pulled her pillow over her ears. Please, God, she prayed, time’s runnin’ low. Please.

  •••

  Celia spent Saturday morning early dusting the library shelves in the children’s room. She’d just made it to the Ws on the fiction shelf when her daddy walked in.

  “Celia.” He said it like somebody’d say, “Good morning.”

  “Daddy.” It was hard for Celia to call him that with the hardness in her heart.

  He seemed to be waiting for her to say more, but she didn’t fill the space, had no desire to and didn’t know what to say to a man she’d held secret hopes for, a man who’d made her mother cry after she’d held everything together for them all for two long years.

  “Your mama told me what you did, identifyin’ Troy Wishon and helpin’ Ruby Lynne.”

  Celia kept dusting.

  “I’m proud of you, Celia. That was a brave thing to do, a good thing.”

  “It needed to be done.” Celia warmed but felt t
he swelling of her own heart at his praise was a betrayal.

  “Yes, it did. Not many girls your age would do all you did. I heard you’re directing the Christmas pageant, too. I’m lookin’ forward to seein’ it.”

  She wanted to tell him that she didn’t care what he thought about the Christmas play, that he should have been there to protect them from the fire and the Klan and the likes of Troy Wishon, but she didn’t. She just kept dusting places she’d already dusted.

  “Well, that’s all. I just wanted to say.”

  Celia glanced up at him but quickly looked away. She heard him hesitate, then walk down the hallway toward the kitchen. Celia closed her eyes, willing away tears of frustration. She clamped her lips and steeled her will.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  MISS LILL AND CELIA’S MAMA cut old Mr. Belvidere’s Klan robe down to size that morning and planned to create flowing skirts from the voluminous white fabric. Joe Earl had promised to shape frames to hold the tulle wings for the angel of the Lord. It might not be ready in time for the last rehearsal, but that was okay with Celia. She was willing to make a stunning debut on Christmas Eve—as Janice promised she and Coltrane, as Mary and Joseph, would do, along with her aunt’s baby, who’d be arriving by train just in time to play the baby Jesus. Still no word about the camel.

  Celia had just left the two women upstairs discussing their sewing project and come down to begin preparing lunch when she saw her daddy in the adult section of the library, replacing a book on the top shelf. Celia ducked behind the corner of the wall and took her place at the library desk, ready to sign out whatever book he wanted. It’s a hopeful sign, him reading. She thought the words like a prayer of gratitude and waited. But his footsteps went the other way. The back door opened and closed.

  Disappointed, Celia left the desk and wandered toward the kitchen, stopping at the bookcase she’d seen her daddy near. She looked up at the top shelf where she’d seen him reach, curious as to what might have caught his interest. It was a section on geology—rocks—something she couldn’t imagine her daddy thinking about. Even she, curious about most everything, wasn’t too curious about rocks. A book had been pulled just a couple of inches forward, like he wanted to remember where it was. She dragged the library stool over to stand on and pushed the book into place, but it didn’t go all the way back on the shelf. Something kept it from sliding full in. Celia swallowed. She stepped up to the next step on the stool and then to the top so she could see what was back there.