“Just a minute and I’ll tell you.” Tab moved one of Aunt Eugenia’s hands down on the wheel to get a look at the gauges. “Less than a quarter of a tank.”
“Not enough, but it’ll have to do. Gimme that map outta the glove compartment. We gotta get out of this state.” She looked back at the blue Dodge and then up at Tab. “Course it’s just a coincidence. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. Soon as we clear town, it’ll go its way and we’ll go ours.”
“That’s what I think also,” Tab said, to make her happy, just as Tina was trying to make Tab happy. Aunt Eugenia was beyond happy. The whole of Sherman’s army could have been behind them now and she would not have cared. “We made a clear, nonviolent statement for all the world to see.”
“And so what’s the world gonna see?” Tina was feeling vindictive. “There is now a hole in the wall and the word shame painted on the side of the building, with an arrow pointing to the hole, like you were saying, It’s a shame the plaque is gone.”
It was a particularly bad habit of Tab’s that she would start laughing in the worst types of situations. That was why Grandmother never took her to funerals anymore, but she could picture it: all the people of Pulaski walking along and nodding their heads and saying, “Why, yes, it sure is a shame the glorious plaque has gone missing.”
Tina drummed her fingers on the map and waited until Tab had stopped laughing. “You are gonna think funny if that car back there keeps following us. Turn left here at this next corner, Aunt Eugenia. That’s county road Thirty-three.
“Left here?” Eugenia was slowly coming out of her trance. “Why would we want to turn left? That takes us southeast; we want to go straight south. See that sign that says ‘Lawrenceburg, nineteen miles’? That’s where we want to go.” She sailed past the left turn and headed toward Lawrenceburg, jiggling the wheel, swerving across the middle line in the road to punctuate her point. “I must call Val tonight.”
“That was the last turn south ’til we get to Lawrenceburg.” Tab was hanging back over the front seat, looking at the map with Tina. “We can turn south in Lawrenceburg. It’s not far from there to Highway 72 and then home to Bainbridge,” Tina said. She looked down to consult the map again. Tab watched the blue Dodge. There were two cars and a truck between them. “Besides, this is the main road out of Pulaski. If some native persons are out in their cars and headed this way, they just naturally have to be on this road.”
“So,” Tina said, trying to be casual about it, not wanting to send Aunt Eugenia off in the wrong direction, “what do you plan to do with the plaque? You’re not gonna”—she pretended to laugh—“gonna take it back to Granddaddy, are you?”
Aunt Eugenia laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
The girls looked at each other, “Don’t be silly,” in unison.
“Of course she wouldn’t do that,” Tab said.
“So,” Tina said, “what might we think about doing with it?”
“The obvious, my dears.” She tapped the horn of Grandmother’s Buick to make her point.
“Aah, the obvious.” Tina was nodding.
“We will hurl it into the muddy depths of the Tennessee River, upon whose banks our ancestors perpetrated untold anguish and heartache.”
“My ancestors did not—” Tina put a hand over Tab’s mouth.
“That’s a great idea, Aunt Eugenia.”
“I don’t know if I want to do that to the plaque,” Tab whispered.
“What do you want to do, take it home to Granddaddy?”
The Blue Dodge edged closer as other cars on the highway left the main road for the sanctuary of home.
CHAPTER 42
The Blue Dodge
NOW SHADOWS WERE LONG off the passing trees. Traffic had thinned to an occasional tractor lumbering along on its way home. The blue Dodge was still four or five car lengths behind, but there was no one in between now. The girls could no longer imagine that this might all be happenstance. Eugenia was still off in her own world, contemplating the vast implications of a bucket of white paint on a brick wall. They would hear about this in Berkeley.
“Aunt Eugenia, remember that car I mentioned before? Have you noticed that it’s still behind us? It’s been following us since Pulaski.”
“Must be going on down to Birmingham.”
“No, ma’am, I don’t think so. I think it’s following us on purpose. I think they know about the paint in Pulaski, about the plaque.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. How could they know that? Not a soul was around when we did it.”
“I’m sure they’re just country boys out for a good time,” Tab said, “but if they get to drinking too much, we’re in big trouble out here, out of our state and nobody to call on.” The thought gave rise to an acid taste in her throat. How was it that now, suddenly, they had no one to call on, when before, always before, they had lived in the center of founding authority?
They were coming into Lawrenceburg. “This is absurd. I’m going to stop now and get some gas. You watch. That car will go right on by.” And it did go on by, but it stopped down at the corner as they gassed up the Buick.
Tab kept an eye on them while Aunt Eugenia went to the ladies’ room. “Probably calling home to say they’re gonna be late on account of they have to run some outsiders off the road into the river and to keep the chitterlings warm.”
Tina bit a nail and watched one of the three of them get out and make a phone call in the booth on the sidewalk. An empty beer can was pitched out the driver’s side.
What happened next turned into a blur of asphalt and trees and sky. As soon as they were on the outskirts of Lawrenceburg and on a lonely two-lane road, the blue Dodge pulled up behind them and began tapping their bumper. When a sheriff’s car passed at the next intersection, the Dodge backed off, but it came at them again when the patrol car was out of sight. What began as worry over scratches to Grandmother’s car quickly turned to panic that something far worse might happen.
The whole car would shake each time there was contact with the back bumper. If Aunt Eugenia slowed down, the bumps were harder and more frequent. If she went faster, contact was more erratic and caused both cars to sway wildly over the road. “This is asinine. I’m going to stop and talk to them, whoever they are.”
“Are you crazy, Aunt Eugenia? Out here in the middle of nowhere and it getting dark? And we got the plaque here in the car with us?” They were too afraid to think of crying. With each contact, the girls were holding on to anything available or bracing against the ceiling. The blue Dodge began to honk right before it would hit. Dust was rushing through the open windows. There was not another car in sight.
The next stretch of road was curving and the Dodge couldn’t get at them as easily as it had on the straightaway. Eugenia floored the gas pedal. “We’re coming to the Alabama line; they’ll pull back now.”
Tab reached over and turned on the car lights. They could see the WELCOME TO ALABAMA sign in the high beams. All that was left of the sun was an orange glow through the trees off to their right. The blue Dodge had turned into two headlights, cutting through the dust as it flew past the welcome sign.
“They’re not turning back, but we’re coming up on Crossroads. We’re not that far from home.” Suddenly, Eugenia made a hard left turn onto a dirt road and the Dodge boys overshot the turn. The big Buick swerved and careened from side to side as the road got smaller and rougher. At one point, they may have even cut across a pasture. Fence posts zipped by in the dark. “If we can find a house, they won’t dare come into the yard,” Eugenia said. That’s what she thought.
The Buick took the next left and began bumping down steep, hard-packed clay toward a large clapboard house. They were bound to hit it if Tab hadn’t started yelling at Eugenia, who was looking to her rear. The car skidded to a stop right past the house, coming to rest in what seemed to be its backyard.
They were momentarily lost in a cloud of dust as the Buick shook itself to a stop, high beams coursing through dancin
g red clay particles. They sat perfectly still, all of them, not wanting to move, for fear it would bring on the Dodge boys.
The settling dust gave way to a strange sight: an old flatbed truck covered with crepe-paper streamers, eerie in the Buick’s high beams. Long crepe-paper arms were swaying in the night breeze. A table and several chairs sat on the top. A fake window painted on a piece of plywood leaned up against the back of the cab—maybe an empty stage, or perhaps a plaything for children. “What in the world?” Eugenia began brushing the dust off of her shoulders, staring at the thing, half-expecting the Dodge boys to skid in behind them any minute.
Tina was in the backseat, burying the plaque under her sweater, and then her periscope eyes rose slowly to take a look around, coming only to the top of the front seat. “What is that thing?”
“Who cares, long as we lost ’em.” Tab was trying to figure how to turn off the ignition and the lights so as to look casual, as if all along they had meant to end up down here in this gully behind this broken-down old building—just in case anybody was here in the first place, in case anybody was watching.
They sat in the car for a moment, getting used to the dark, listening to the quiet. There was the click of the door handle as Eugenia opened it and got out. The girls followed, walking around to meet in front of the car. The moon was in and out of the clouds. A whippoorwill called in the distance. It was such a contrast to what had gone before; the silence was ringing in their ears. “Must be a child’s plaything.” They moved closer to it. Tab reached out and pulled at one of the streamers.
“Don’t go messing with the float,” a low voice said from out of the dark. They all jumped and backed up into one another, searching for the source. There was a creaking sound and they could make out the outline of a man sitting in a swing under some pine trees. The figure slowly rose and began walking in their direction. Eugenia, her voice unsure, began talking to this shadow figure. “What a lovely night we have here,” she said, trying to straighten her scarf, brushing dust off her dress. “I hope you’ll forgive this interruption.” The black man—now they could tell he was an older black man—said nothing, just kept walking toward them. “I see you’re building a lovely, lovely . . . thing there.” Eugenia took a few steps back, as did the girls.
Their eyes were adjusting and they were beginning to see by the full moon that was coming up over the fields. Tab could hear the call of a screech owl out in the woods, much like the one she remembered from their Highlander nights.
“You ladies lost?” The black man clicked his flashlight on their little cluster.
“Lost?” They looked at one another, delighted with that explanation. “Lost? Lost! Yes, that’s what we are, lost,” Aunt Eugenia said, and Tina and Tab nodded their heads in violent agreement. “Lost—yes, we’ve been circling around here forever and a day.”
“Where ’bouts you headed?”
“Headed?” Eugenia said. “Well, we were trying to get to—”
“Home,” Tina almost shouted. She cleared her throat and said it again, trying for more dignity. “We would like to go home . . . to Bainbridge.”
He swung his flashlight up into the darkness, pointing it toward the road. “Wouldn’t be having a disagreement with that coming yonder, would you?” Heads jerked around. Being behind the building, they couldn’t see the car, only a glow up on the road, moving along slowly, streams of reflected light shining up through the trees as it came toward them.
They stepped closer to the black man. Aunt Eugenia began to gush. “What happened was that we were minding our own business and that . . . those . . . that car full of—”
He stopped her. “Why don’t you ladies come on inside ’til whoever that is up there finds whatever it is they looking for.”
“That’s an excellent idea, excellent,” Aunt Eugenia said, and all three followed along behind him, centipede-fashion. He opened the door to a back room that was so dark, they couldn’t see anything. He said for them to follow close behind him, which they did. They went into the next room, which was bigger. He pointed his flashlight and told them to have a seat on one of the pews. That was when they realized that they must be in a church of some sort.
“Everybody gone to the drive-in picture show right now. Ain’t nobody here but me. Sit on down. Let me go look can I see up on the road.”
“I don’t think I would have any dealings with those gentlemen if I were you,” Aunt Eugenia said. “And this,” she called to the man she had decided must be the minister of the church, “this is a lovely sanctuary, Reverend.”
“How does she know that? I can’t see a thing. It’s black as pitch in here.” Tab was whispering into Tina’s ear, holding on to her shoulder. The black man walked slowly to the front of the church.
Looking through the window, they could see a glow of light from up on the road. He opened the door a crack and looked out as the light passed. Then he closed it and came back to where they had taken seats on one of the front pews.
“Look to me like they gonna be back. Driving slow, like they looking for something.” He stood for a moment, flipping the flashlight on and off, watching the small circle it made on the floor. “Now they can’t see the car you come in less they be round back.” He turned the flashlight off and put it in his pocket. “We don’t want ’em coming round back, and Jessie be bringing them others from the drive-in anytime now. They see all the lights on, bound to know something wrong.” He nodded his head as if he had decided. “Y’all get up under them pews. I’m gonna turn on all the light I can find. Wouldn’t want them to see you.”
“Oh, now sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea. You don’t know these men. They’re—”
“Been knowing them kinda men all my life. Them kind put off by a lot of light, and it’ll warn the others that’s coming.”
“But—”
The preacher held up his hand. “Now miss, I know what I’m doing here, and we ain’t got much time. They driving slow, like they looking for something, and they ain’t gonna leave less they come down and see to this place, it being the only turnoff between here and Hollow Road. Strange car, ain’t never seen it round here, probably from out of the county. More’n likely, they gonna be turning round right now.”
“I’ll do it,” Tab said. “I’ll get up under this one.” She dropped to her knees.
“Scoot over.” Tina scrunched in beside her. Tab ended up in the floor space between the first and second pews. As she scooted forward, her hand touched a piece of paper on the floor and it made a slight cracking noise.
“Shhhh.” Tina was lying full out on her stomach, her head hugging the floor.
“Now listen here.” The preacher’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “These boys mean business—think I seen a coon tail on the antenna.” A faint glow of light stopped him. It was still some distance off, but coming slowly back down the road. “Quiet now.” He turned and walked up the aisle, the echo of his footsteps bouncing off the corners of the church walls. Tab touched the paper again without meaning to. It made a rustling sound.
“Will you shut up?” Tina had raised up long enough to whisper it, then pressed her cheek back down on the pine flooring, eyes squeezed tight.
Eugenia sat down on the floor with them, her arm resting on the seat as if to protect them. “This is just ridiculous. How did this ever happen?”
“How do you think it happened?” Tina said in a loud whisper, the anger welling up past the fear. “You go making a lot of trouble and somebody’s gonna notice. Didn’t you think about that? Don’t you ever think about that?”
And Eugenia, “They wouldn’t hurt a man of God.”
Tab could see the reflected glow through the front windows of the church, very faint but coming forward, not stopping, not going away. They were stuck, trapped down here in this gully, in this church that didn’t even look like a church. If something happened to them, nobody would even think to look down here. And it came to her, for a moment, just one moment—Dominique’s cons
tant way of being.
Tab heard faint clinks and closed her eyes to what seemed a bright light. The preacher had pulled the strings on two of the lightbulbs closest to the entrance. Tab kept her eyes closed to let them adjust to what was a dim, faded light when she opened them again. She inched forward enough to look down the aisle and see the silhouette of the preacher standing under the light, opening the front door.
Eugenia said, “I don’t know how we got into this. I honestly don’t, but if—if it was my fault—”
“Shhh, Aunt Eugenia, please, just please, be quiet.” Tina buried her face again.
The Dodge’s lights bounced up into the trees and down on the red clay as it turned off the main road and came down the drive toward the front of the church. For an instant, the lights shot through the front door and hit against the opposite wall, illuminating a cross that was nailed there, momentarily casting its shadow on them.
Eugenia scrunched down a little bit lower to the floor. Tina whispered into her hands, “Oh Lord, oh Lord,” and it raced through Tab’s mind also—thoughts of contrition and absolution, hoping that the Lord knew that it had not been her idea to steal the plaque, but of course He could see that in the first place and He could also see that none of this was her doing, and if He would just get them out of this, she would go straight home to Bainbridge and stay there for the rest of her natural life and never again be tempted by some rabble-rousing outsider California aunt.
Not only had the preacher turned on all the lights but he had proceeded, as casual as you please, to stoop down and wedge the front door open with a stick just as two of the Dodge boys—they heard them but couldn’t see—slammed their doors and came walking up to the front door of the church.
“Evening,” the black man said, as if it were Sunday and he was greeting his congregation. “When I seen them lights, thought you was the first of the all-night prayer meeting people coming.”
Voices came out of the dark. “Prayer meeting? Ain’t it a little late for a prayer meeting, uncle?” They sounded friendly enough. Tab thought they sounded that way.
The Summer We Got Saved Page 30
