Fireflies in December

by Jennifer Erin Valent

  “What’re you waitin’ for?” Walt said in a strained voice. “Burn ’em!”

  “The girl’s ready to use that gun,” one of the men said. “I ain’t gonna be the next one shot.”

  The other man didn’t have as much fear as the first, and he picked up a can of gasoline and walked toward the house, flinging the can back and forth to soak the flowers in Momma’s beds. I could feel droplets of the gasoline landing on my pant legs.

  “I ain’t afraid of no little girl,” he said. “She just got lucky.” He put the can down and took the matches in his hand. “Ain’t that right? You just got lucky. Well,” he continued, striking the match, “you ain’t so lucky now . . . are ya?”

  When he tossed the match, it seemed like it took minutes for it to land square into Momma’s best rosebush. It lit up like fireworks, crackling and popping and sending sparks every which way. Everything went crazy then, with shouts and curses and gunshots.

  Gunshots . . . only part of me realized that I’d shot that gun again. I could vaguely hear Gemma scream and the men shout out in voices that were mixed with anger and fear, but all I could see were the flames that had begun to lick at the porch.

  As the men started to crowd into their trucks, I gathered a bit of sense, at least enough to get out of Gemma’s way. Once she’d been released from the grip of the coward who was the first to run from the fire, she’d sprung into action, grabbing the rug from the porch and smacking it over the flower beds. I could only watch her work, my legs glued in place. The gun dropped from my hands, clattering down the porch steps, but I hardly noticed. It was like I wasn’t even really there.

  “Get some water, Jessie,” Gemma yelled. “Go quick!”

  Her voice gave me enough of a jolt to send me staggering into the house for Momma’s mopping pail. I filled it with water and rushed back outside to dump it on Momma’s flowers. Gemma had put out most of the fire with the rug, but the flames had started to spread to the stairway on one side. On my way back up the stairway to get more water, the flames licked at my legs and I heard Gemma scream again.

  “What?” I called back.

  “You’re on fire.”

  I fell onto the porch in a panic, realizing for the first time the burning that had crept up my left leg.

  Gemma ran onto the porch and put the flames out by smacking me all over, even places that weren’t singed. After she was done with me, she finished off the last of the fire and then came back to lean over me. “You okay? Jessie! You okay?”

  “Think so,” I answered slowly. I pulled my charred pant leg up and peered at my skin, which was pink and had fewer hairs than before. “Don’t look too serious. There ain’t no blisters or nothin’. It’ll be okay.”

  Gemma got up and soaked a rag with water, coming back to place it on my leg. I held the rag onto the sorest spot and laid my head on one knee.

  Gemma sat on her heels and shook her head. “Don’t make no sense,” she muttered tearfully. “It just don’t make no sense.”

  “What don’t?”

  “People! Doin’ things like this . . . it don’t make no sense.”

  “Accordin’ to my daddy, all kinds of people don’t make no sense. Ol’ Walt Blevins . . . he’s just a mean ol’ cuss who don’t like nobody or no thing.”

  “He’d have burnt down your daddy’s house if you hadn’t shot ’im.”

  My heart started to race even harder when she spoke those words, bringing back all the fear I’d had once I heard the report of that gunshot. “We’d better get out of here,” I said suddenly.

  “What for?”

  “They’ll get the law on me. I don’t want to go to jail!”

  “Why would they get the law on you, Jessie? They’s breakin’ the law by doin’ what they done. Ain’t no criminal gonna turn himself in to turn somebody else in.”

  “Ain’t no tellin’,” I cried, getting up quickly. Putting weight on the leg made me realize that it hurt worse than I’d thought, but I steadied myself by clutching the porch rail.

  “Where you gonna go this time of night? It might be more dangerous to go runnin’ about in the woods.”

  I didn’t have a chance to argue because Daddy’s truck rolled up fast as lightning, and Momma and Daddy jumped out.

  “Jessilyn,” Daddy yelled when he saw me. “Jessilyn, you girls all right?”

  I hugged my daddy hard when he caught up to me, and Momma gripped my shoulders from behind, crying. “Jessilyn, Jessilyn,” she said over and over. “What happened here, baby?”

  “It was Klan. They done burnt her,” Gemma said. “They would’ve burnt the house down too if Jessie hadn’t scared ’em off.”

  “Where’d they burn you? You okay? Oh, my baby . . . my baby!” Momma grabbed Daddy’s arm and ordered, “You get this girl into the house. I’m callin’ the doctor.”

  “Phone ain’t workin’,” Gemma told them. “They did somethin’ to it.”

  Momma gasped and put her hands to her mouth, and Daddy’s face tightened up so much I thought his jaw would pop. He scooped me up into his arms in one catlike motion. “I’ll run into town and fetch him,” he said in a voice I could tell he was fighting to restrain. “Won’t take me long.” On the way in, he stopped on the steps and looked Gemma square in the eye. “You okay?” he asked softly. “Did they hurt you?”

  Gemma shook her head.

  “She put out the fire, Daddy,” I said. “All by herself.”

  “That’s good thinkin’, Gemma,” Daddy bent over her a bit so she’d have to meet his gaze. “We’re sure glad to have you with us,” he said, his voice strained with emotion. “Don’t you ever forget that, you hear?” Then, quick as he’d turned sentimental, he got all businesslike again and nodded toward the house. “Now, you get on inside. We’ll have the doctor look at you too.”

  I could see Gemma was as touched by Daddy’s words as a body could be. Tears stung at her eyes but she blinked them back. “I ain’t hurt none.”

  “Well, we’ll have him look at you even so.”

  Momma took my foot in her hand as though she had to be touching some part of me to make sure I was still alive. Her other hand was on Gemma’s shoulder guiding her gently inside the house, the first touch of genuine warmth I’d seen her give Gemma since the day Daddy said she’d be staying with us.

  When Daddy set me down on the couch and examined my leg, his face turned crimson. I’d never seen him so angry in my life, and I didn’t want to see what he might do in a state like that.

  “Sadie, you stay in here and tend to the girls while I go fetch the doc. Don’t you open that door for nobody, you hear?” He took one glaring look out the big front window. “But first I’m goin’ outside to take care of that sacrilegious thing in my front yard.”

  Daddy stormed out the front door, throwing it shut. I sat up as far as I could on the couch and stretched my neck to see out the window. I heard Daddy talking nicely to Duke as he untied him and patted him on the backside to send him away. Duke ran under the porch, where he always went to lick his wounds.

  In the firelight, Daddy’s face glowed with rage, and he stood still for a few moments, staring at that burning cross. Then he went to work putting out the flames. Once he was done, Daddy kicked at the smoldering cross until it fell hard and loud. He kept kicking after it was on the ground, and then he backed up and tripped over something near the steps. He leaned over and picked up the rifle, looking at it strangely.

  Gemma was sitting on the floor beside me, and I lay back down on the sofa and caught her hand. “He knows. Don’t you leave me.”

  “He knows what?”

  “He knows I had that rifle. He just found it. Don’t you leave me when he comes in here askin’ questions.”

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. And anyway, he ought to be happy you saved us all.”

  It was nice to hear her say it that way, but I wasn’t convinced that Daddy wasn’t going to skin me alive. I waited with my eyes squeezed shut, praying I’d make it through the
next few minutes.

  Daddy came back inside, and my stomach turned somersaults, but he just walked on into the kitchen. I could hear the pantry door squeal as he opened it, and I knew he was checking to see if it was really his gun. Then he came back into the den, with Momma following, her box of supplies in hand. “Jessilyn,” he said with confusion, “this my rifle that was layin’ outside?”

  I swallowed hard and found it impossible to say anything at first.

  “Well?” he asked. “Is it?”

  “Yes . . . yes’r.”

  “How’d it get there?”

  I ducked my head and said quietly, “I used it.”

  Daddy got down on one knee in front of me, surprisingly calm, and asked, “You used it or you held it?”

  “Used it,” I whispered.

  “What’s she sayin’?” Momma cried. “Jessilyn, what’ve you done?”

  “She done saved us; that’s what she done,” Gemma exclaimed. “They’d have burnt us with the house if she hadn’t.”

  Daddy grabbed Momma’s arm with his right hand and Gemma’s with his left. “Everybody just wait,” he ordered, and then he said to me, “Now you listen up good. Did you shoot somebody with this gun?”

  I know my eyes must have been wide as saucers when I looked at him and said, “Yes’r.”

  Nobody spoke in that room for a good minute until Daddy said, “Who did you shoot?”

  “Walt Blevins,” I said. “He was one of ’em.”

  “Did you kill him?” Momma asked loudly.

  “There ain’t no dead body out in the yard that we could see,” Gemma said. “But she hit him, sure enough.”

  “Where’d you hit him?” Daddy asked me.

  “In the shoulder, I think. Least that’s where I saw the blood on his robe.”

  Momma’s head dropped, and she started mumbling things under her breath.

  “You shoot anyone else?” Daddy asked.

  “I don’t know for sure.”

  Daddy emptied the leftover bullets, counting them aloud. “You shot three times. How’d you manage to shoot this thing three times?”

  “Don’t know,” I said. “I just shot. I was scared they’d hurt us.”

  Momma was crying by this time, wailing about how the law would be on us.

  “It was self-defense, Sadie,” Daddy said. “The sheriff ain’t gonna arrest a thirteen-year-old girl for protectin’ herself.” He got up and patted Gemma and me on the head. “I’ll fetch the sheriff while I’m at it. You girls stay here with your momma.”

  I could see the shock in Gemma’s face when she heard Daddy talk about my momma like she was her momma, but I was just as surprised when Momma took Gemma’s hand. “I was so scared,” she said to both of us. “So scared they’d hurt you girls.” She wiped her wet eyes with the back of her other hand and said, “Oh, thank God you’re safe. Thank You, God! Thank You, Jesus!”

  That was when we all let the tears come, and the three of us huddled together on Momma’s threadbare gold sofa, crying.

  Sheriff Slater and Mr. Tinker, his deputy, drove up right after my daddy and Dr. Mabley. They and Daddy spent most of the first half hour talking and looking around outside. It wasn’t until Dr. Mabley had dressed my leg and told us I’d gotten by pretty lucky that they came inside to talk to me and Gemma.

  I did most of the talking, and I went through every bit of what I could remember about that night. Every now and again, Momma would groan about something I said, especially when I mentioned shooting the gun or repeated the awful words the men had said.

  “You sayin’ these men was Klan, Jessilyn?” Mr. Tinker asked. “Every one of ’em?”

  “They was Klan. All of ’em. And I recognized one as Walt Blevins, like I said.”

  “You sure, now?” Sheriff Slater asked. “You sure that was Walt Blevins who got the first shot?”

  “I knew it just by his voice, but he done took his hood off when I shot ’im. There’s no doubt.”

  “The bullet hole in his shoulder ought to tell you some-thin’, Moe,” Daddy told the sheriff. “Can’t be too hard iden-tifyin’ a man that way.”

  “No . . . no, it can’t be. Question will be who else might’ve taken a bullet. From what I hear from the girls, I can’t tell if we have more injured men than we know of.”

  Daddy had been chewing on his pipe, but he took it and threw it hard against the fireplace, making me jump. Then he yelled, “It’d be better if they all took a bullet. It’d serve ’em right!”

  “Harley!” Momma gasped.

  Sheriff Slater put his hand on Daddy’s shoulder and said, “Now, Harley, a man in your position has every reason to feel spittin’ mad, but it won’t do no good for you to go gettin’ yourself into trouble by bein’ rough. You just leave them boys to me and the law, you hear?”

  “It’ll all work out, Harley,” Mr. Tinker said calmingly. “Don’t you start frettin’ your wife none by takin’ things into your own hands.”

  Daddy shook his head. “Won’t do much good to let the law do justice if the judge is Klan too.”

  The sheriff crossed his arms and nodded rapidly. “I’ll watch out for it. I know who’s who in this town’s courts. Judge Riley’s a good sort. Ain’t no Klan connection with him, and he’s even ruled on the side of Negroes before. I’ll make sure Judge Riley gets the case, and he’ll take care of Walt Blevins.”

  “What about the rest of ’em? You heard Jessilyn say that there was another one plannin’ to burn the place down after she shot Blevins.”

  “Well, we may not be able to track ’em all down, but Walt’s likely the ringleader. Once he’s out of the picture, things’ll settle down. You wait and see.”

  “We’ll take care of ’em in court, Harley,” Mr. Tinker said.

  “I don’t want my girls testifyin’ in court,” Daddy insisted. “I teach mine all about standin’ up for what’s right, but there ain’t no way I’m makin’ these girls tell their story to a jury full of Klan-sympathizin’ white men who’ll just let Walt walk away to do more harm. Besides that, they might start tryin’ to get after Jessilyn for shootin’ that gun. It ain’t like we’re the most popular people in town these days. Ain’t unlikely they’d be happy to blame us for somethin’ else.” He shook his head adamantly. “No sir! It ain’t gonna happen.”

  “But we can tell ’em—,” I began.

  He cut me off. “There are things you don’t understand, Jessilyn. That’s why you got a momma and daddy to help you make decisions, and I’m makin’ this one. There ain’t gonna be no testifyin’ in court.”

  The sheriff was visibly upset, but he could see that Daddy’s mind was made up and he wouldn’t be changing it tonight.

  Daddy and Momma showed the men out, and I lay back and closed my eyes, holding on to Gemma’s hand. “They’ll just let Walt go,” I said in a frightened whisper. “He ain’t gonna pay at all for what he done.”

  “Your daddy’s right,” Gemma muttered. “Ain’t no way a white jury would convict Walt of anythin’ against a white family who took in a colored girl. Folks around here think that’s a mortal sin. They’d figure we all got what we deserved.” She looked down at her skirt and let two tears drip down and soak into it. “Seems I ain’t done nothin’ but bring trouble around here.”

  “Don’t you go sayin’ that!” I said, sitting upright in a hurry. “Don’t you never go sayin’ that. You heard my daddy tellin’ you we’re glad to have you here, and there ain’t nobody—no Walt Blevins, no hooded men—nobody who’s goin’ to change that. It’s what we think that matters, and what we think is that you belong with us. And with us is where you’ll stay.” Gemma had her face turned aside, and I grabbed it, forcing her to look at me. “You hear, Gemma Teague? It’s here you’re stayin’.”

  She nodded slowly, her tears making tracks from her eyelashes to her chin, and then she threw her arms around me. We clung to each other for a while, and I could tell Momma purposefully puttered around the kitchen longer than she needed to s
o Gemma and I could have our time alone.

  “Gemma?” I whispered after a few minutes of silence.

  “Huh?”

  “Thanks for savin’ my leg.”

  “Thanks for savin’ our lives,” she whispered back.

  She set her head down on the sofa beside me, and I rolled my head over so our foreheads were touching. It felt special, that bond between the two of us. We’d faced death together, and I figured we couldn’t have had anything happen that would have made us see each other as any more important.

  We couldn’t have been closer if we’d been blood sisters.

  Chapter 11

  As it turned out, Walt Blevins was wanted in Coopersville for an assault, and by good fortune he was arrested there just a day after our ordeal. Daddy told me and Gemma that he and Sheriff Slater had agreed to keep the shooting a secret.

  “We agree it’d do no good for it to get out if it don’t have to, all this trouble,” Daddy said. “If Walt’s goin’ to jail anyhow, ain’t no need for anyone else to know what’s gone on here, you see?”

  “But won’t people hear about it?” I asked. “This town ain’t good at keepin’ secrets.”

  “There ain’t no one more used to keepin’ secrets than them Klan boys,” Daddy answered. “Them cowards don’t want no one knowin’ who they are. We’ll tell Luke, but he’ll be the only one, you hear? The doc’s agreed to keep his peace, and Sheriff Slater and Mr. Tinker are the only other ones who’ll know anythin’.”

  It all seemed to be tied up with a bow. Walt was gone, the Klansmen were quiet not wanting to incriminate themselves, and we Lassiters kept our traps shut. We agreed that if anyone asked, we’d say I burnt my leg on the tractor, but I figured it unlikely anyone would ask, anyway.

  The evening after the incident, I was sitting on the porch when Luke came by for supper. I had my injured leg propped up on the railing, and I watched him over the bandages as he flew across our driveway. “What’re you doin’?” I called. “Dinner ain’t even ready yet and you’re runnin’ like a jackrabbit.”

  He skidded to a stop right in front of the porch and whipped his hat off. “Don’t no one think I ought to know about things when they happen?”