The Blue Star

by Tony Earley

  “A cross burning?” Jim said. “But you and Chrissie . . .”

  “Joe ain’t a white man,” said Mrs. Steppe, “however much you might want him to be. And one white man was dead because of him, and another one was crippled. It didn’t make any difference how white I was. And Chrissie was only half white. Soon as it got light, I took my egg money, and me and her hitched a ride into town and got on the train to come to North Carolina. We only had enough money that morning to get to Little Rock, but we started out.”

  “How did you finally make it all the way home?”

  “I was able to get your uncle Zeno to wire us the rest.”

  Jim gulped his coffee and swallowed miserably. He had to be the worst adult on God’s green earth. Uncle Zeno would have steered the conversation somewhere else long before Mrs. Steppe embarrassed herself. Mama would kill him if she ever found out he had asked such a dumb question.

  “I just couldn’t think of anybody else to help us,” Mrs. Steppe went on. “I knew Daddy and Mama didn’t have it, and I wouldn’t ever ask the Bucklaws for anything if I could help it. You’ve seen how they think they own people. So, now we owe you instead. I haven’t been able to pay it back yet, but I will. You can tell your uncle Zeno I said that if you want to.”

  “I’m sure he’s not worried about it.”

  “He won’t ever mention it to me, but I guarantee you he ain’t forgot about it. The McBrides didn’t get where they are by not worrying about their money.”

  Jim nodded. That was true enough.

  “It was awfully kind of him, though. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d said no.”

  “Does Chrissie know where it came from?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Mrs. Steppe said. “And I’m sorry about it. I know it would be better for her if she didn’t know, but she does. The first time she laid eyes on you this year, she knew we owed your family money, and that ain’t no way to start out in a new school. And I don’t guess I should have told you just now. I don’t know what I’m thinking anymore. I just can’t stop talking.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  Mrs. Steppe shook her head a little but said, “You might as well. I’ve told you everything else I know.”

  “Why did you marry Mr. Steppe?”

  “Ah, I don’t even know the answer to that one anymore. It seems like a thousand years ago. Because he was the prettiest man I’d ever seen, I guess, and because he could talk like nobody else I ever listened to. And he said he was going to live in California and grow orange trees and I liked the sound of that. California. Daddy had got his arm cut off and he owed people money because he couldn’t work, and I’d hardly ever been off the mountain, and I’d never even rode on a train until I started going with Zeno, and then we only went to New Carpenter, and I thought, why not? Why not marry this handsome Indian and ride a train all the way to the Pacific Ocean, then get off and live there?

  “At the time I was just so mad at Zeno for not joining the army. I stomped my foot and railed at him, but you know Zeno, he wouldn’t budge once he made up his mind, so I broke it off with him. But that seems like a crazy thing to get mad about now, when you think about it, because all them boys got killed for nothing. Zeno was right about the whole thing. There wasn’t any reason for that war. Of course, you never will know as much as you do when you’re young, and I knew everything there was to know. You didn’t join up because of Chrissie, did you?”

  “Partly, I suppose.”

  She raised her coffee cup, then set it back down in the saucer.

  “I don’t know that that seems like a good reason, to be honest with you,” she said. “There ain’t never been a little girl worth getting killed over, no matter how pretty her hair is. And she never was impressed with Bucky for being in the navy, not like the Bucklaws. You’d of thought he was an admiral, the way they talked.”

  “They probably would have got me in the draft, anyway,” Jim answered, his face hot. “Did Mr. Steppe join the army because of you?”

  “I suppose,” she said. “I had pretty hair, too, you know. He figured he could at least get one up on Zeno, and he did. And I figured I could hurt Zeno’s feelings, and I did. Now, of course, Joe stayed in trouble the whole time for fighting with his officers — that man never could stand taking orders from anybody — but he did get a medal for being brave. He gave it to Chrissie a while back. She’s got it squirreled away somewhere.”

  “That medal must’ve made you proud.”

  “I didn’t care much by the time everything was over with. Joe always was bad to be mad at somebody, but when we started going together, at least he had resolve. You believed him when he said he was going to do some big thing. But then when he came back from France, he was just mad.”

  “What was he mad at?”

  Mrs. Steppe smiled sadly. “Oh, I don’t know, just mad, I guess. Did you know Steppe wasn’t his real name?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “His real name was Owl. Joe Owl. Steppe was the name of a missionary teacher he had at the Cherokee school who helped him get his scholarship at Raleigh. Of course, Joe, being Joe, never made it to Raleigh. He got off the train at some town down east and got in a fight with some old boys who didn’t like a red Indian trying to eat in their train station. Then, when he got out of jail, most of what little money he had was gone from his wallet, and when he contacted the school, they’d canceled his scholarship. The cops had left him only enough to buy a train ticket, but not enough to make it all the way back to Dillsboro. That’s how come him to get off the train here. This is where Joe’s money ran all the way out.”

  “But that’s not right, them taking his money,” Jim said quietly. “Couldn’t he take them to court or something?”

  “That’s not the way things work in the world.”

  “It ought to be.”

  “Do you think you’d still think so much of Chrissie if her name was Chrissie Owl?”

  “Probably. I believe so.”

  “No offense, but you might and you might not. Joe’s mother, Chrissie’s grandmother, didn’t even know how to speak English. All she spoke was Cherokee. What do you think of that? How would you like introducing somebody like that to your mama, prim as she is?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think it would matter.”

  “Well, it does matter. God knows Joe Steppe had a temper and a short fuse, and enough pride for ten Indians, but he also never got a fair shake, not once, besides that scholarship, in his whole life. If he’d been a white man, I wouldn’t be a cook in a railroad hotel, I’ll tell you that right now. We’d be in California.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You know how come she wears her hair like that, don’t you?”

  Jim shook his head.

  “For Joe. He asked her to.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It makes her look like an Indian, but she’s white enough to pass. He said they were playing a joke on everybody, Indian and white, because nobody could tell what she was. It was their little secret.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “I don’t either,” Mrs. Steppe said. “And I’m not sure Chrissie does. It was Joe’s joke. How do you like that pretty hair of hers now?”

  “I think it’s beautiful,” Jim said, blushing. “And I don’t care who her daddy is.”

  “Was,” Mrs. Steppe said. “Her daddy was Injun Joe Steppe and he robbed a bank and shot a policeman and wrapped somebody’s Packard around a tree. That’s who my girl’s daddy was, and here we sit.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now I got to figure out how to get him back to Cherokee. Chrissie would never forgive me if I left him in South Carolina, and I just know he would haunt me if I buried him around here.”

  At that moment someone slowly climbed the porch steps behind Jim. He noticed for the first time that he could no longer see Mrs. Steppe’s face clearly. The square of sky in the window had darkened into a deep blue. The screen bum
ped gently against its frame, and Jim felt a whisper of evening air brush against his neck. Someone tapped at the door and he was afraid to turn around.

  “Why, Zeno,” Mrs. Steppe said. “Come on in and sit with us. I’ve been telling your nephew here my life story, and he’s been nice enough to sit still while I do it.”

  Uncle Zeno removed his hat as he stepped inside. “Evening, Nancy.” He nodded at Jim. “Doc.”

  “Hey,” said Jim.

  “Nancy,” Uncle Zeno said, “we’re awfully sorry over at our place about your loss. Please accept our condolences.”

  “Thank you, Zeno. Please tell your family I appreciate that. I truly do. Would you like some coffee? I’ve got about half a pot left over from supper. It’s still warm. Jim don’t like it much, but I think it tastes all right.”

  “Coffee sounds good about now.”

  Mrs. Steppe pushed through the swinging door into the dining room. Uncle Zeno hung his hat on the chair opposite Mrs. Steppe’s coffee cup and sat down. He motioned with his index finger for Jim to lean closer.

  “Go home,” he whispered.

  “They don’t have any money to get Injun Joe back to Cherokee,” Jim whispered back.

  “I said, go home, Doc.”

  Mrs. Steppe backed through the door into the kitchen. “All right, then,” she said. “Here we go. You still drink it black, don’t you, Zeno?”

  “The blacker the better.”

  Jim stood up. “Thank you for the coffee, Mrs. Steppe,” he said.

  “Why, don’t run off.”

  “I need to get on home. Mama’s probably wondering where I am.”

  “Do you want me to give Chrissie that present?”

  Jim had forgotten about the package sitting beside his coffee cup. “Oh, yes, ma’am,” he said. “It’s not much. It’s just for graduation. And please tell her how sorry I am about her daddy.”

  “I’ll do that. Thank you for coming by.”

  From the porch Jim looked back through the screen. The dark outlines of Mrs. Steppe and Uncle Zeno faced each other across the table. Neither seemed to have anything to say. When Jim turned toward home, he had trouble seeing the steps in front of him, and he had to feel his way into the yard.

  BOOK IV

  The Blue Star

  The Sunny Side of the Mountain

  JIM STOOD with the uncles in the front yard of Uncle Zeno’s house. He wore a new gray suit and a sharp fedora and a fancy wristwatch, all birthday presents from the uncles the day before. Mama had given him the small leather suitcase, his initials stamped in gold between the latches, that now sat at his feet. He pushed up his sleeve and admired the watch — a proper soldier’s watch, with luminous numbers and hands — without noticing what time it was. His old watch still worked fine, but the uncles had worried because it wasn’t shockproof.

  He glanced over his shoulder and studied the outline of the hat worn by his shadow. It looked strange to him no matter how he turned his head. Jim had never owned a real hat before, only baseball caps and hunting caps and the cowboy hat, red with white piping around the edge of the brim, he had favored when he was a boy. He felt like he was wearing a disguise, or someone else’s clothes.

  “You still look like a knothead,” Uncle Zeno said.

  “Sir?”

  “It’s a good-looking hat, but you still look like a knothead.”

  “A knothead wearing a hat,” said Uncle Coran.

  Jim wanted to respond in kind to the teasing but found that he could only swallow. He could not believe he was going away to places the uncles would not be. He didn’t think he could find a hotel room that night in Charlotte without their help, much less find his way through a war.

  Uncle Zeno patted him on the shoulder. “You look fair enough, Doc,” he said. “All we ask is that you fill that suit all the way up.”

  Jim blinked. “Yes, sir. I’ll try.”

  Uncle Al took the handkerchief out of his back pocket and blew his nose.

  “Oh, Allie, don’t start,” Uncle Coran said.

  “It’s the hay fever,” Uncle Al said. “And I ought to be able to blow my own daggum nose without everybody in town commenting on it.”

  “Boys,” said Uncle Zeno.

  Jim stared again at his watch so he wouldn’t have to look at the uncles. This time he couldn’t read the numbers. “What are we waiting for, anyway?” he asked.

  “It’s a surprise,” said Uncle Coran.

  “Just hold on,” Uncle Zeno said. “Cissy will be along in a minute.”

  All four of them stared intently at the house. Mama finally raised one of the window shades in the parlor.

  “Look. There she is,” said Uncle Al, pointing. “There she is.”

  Mama climbed onto a chair and hung a white banner bordered by red on the nail Uncle Zeno had mysteriously hammered into the window frame that morning. In the center of the banner was a blue star. Jim couldn’t believe his eyes. He didn’t think he had done anything to deserve a blue star — he didn’t even know if he would be inducted tomorrow afternoon or the morning after that — yet there it was, rocking gently back and forth in the window for everyone to see.

  “Is that for me?” he asked.

  “It’s a service banner,” said Uncle Zeno. “For our serviceman.”

  All three uncles pulled out their handkerchiefs and blew their noses.

  “Oh, come on, y’all,” Jim said. “Please don’t do this to me.”

  “We’ve all got the hay fever,” Uncle Zeno said. “And we need to get over it before Cissy gets out here.”

  Mama stepped down off the chair and pulled the shade without looking toward them. After a moment she pushed open the front door. Jim picked up his suitcase. It was time to go.

  When Jim walked onto the platform at the depot with Mama and the uncles, a swarm of people enveloped him with noise and back slapping and teasing, for which he was grateful. Norma was there with her parents, and Dennis Deane had managed to borrow a car and scrounge enough gasoline to drive over with Ellie Something, and Pete Hunt glowered importantly up the track and studied his pocket watch and pretended nobody else was there, and even old Miss Brown and Mr. Dunlap had turned up to shake his hand.

  Miss Brown wore a ridiculous hat covered all over with wax fruit. She placed her hands on Jim’s cheeks and stared into his face. Her hands were surprisingly soft, and up close her eyes looked like those of a young person, which startled him.

  “Remember the lessons of the conquistadors, young man,” she said. “Do not let go of your helmet and sword, not even for a moment! Do not leave them lying about in Flanders Fields for someone else to find!”

  “No, ma’am. I won’t.”

  She leaned forward and kissed him soundly on both cheeks. “That is in the continental fashion,” she said. “You will learn about it in France.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Jim, wriggling loose. “Thank you.”

  Norma wrapped him in a fierce hug. Jim put his arms around her and closed his eyes and laid his cheek on top of her head. She would have been a good person to love, and he was sorry he didn’t.

  “You’re my best friend,” he whispered.

  “Just come home,” she whispered back.

  Jim kissed her on the forehead and realized as he did so that she had tilted her face toward him. They were acting in separate movies but had mistakenly wound up on the same screen. “Oh, Norma,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean —”

  “It’s okay, Jim,” she said. “No use confusing everybody at this late date.”

  Ellie Something dove at him and he leaned forward at the waist so that their stomachs would not touch when they hugged. He looked at Norma over Ellie’s shoulder.

  “When I get back, you can teach me how to do calculus,” he said.

  “As if you would care.”

  “I’ll write you,” he said.

  Ellie Something held him at arm’s length and frowned. “Don’t you make me name my baby after you,” she said.


  “I’ll send my address to Elizabeth when I go to college,” said Norma.

  “What?” asked Jim.

  “You heard me,” said Ellie. “I’m naming my baby after Dennis Deane, and don’t you forget it.”

  “That’s me,” Dennis Deane said.

  “I don’t think I could ever forget that,” said Jim.

  “My address in Greensboro,” Norma said. “I’ll give it to your mother when I know it.”

  “Unless it’s a girl,” said Ellie. “Then we’re going to name her Thelma.”

  “Good,” Jim said to Norma.

  “Thelma,” he said to Ellie.

  “I guess I’ll get out of your way, then,” Norma said. “You’ve got all these other people to speak to.”

  “That hat makes you look like John Dillinger,” Dennis Deane said.

  “And we all know what happened to him,” said Jim. He had always enjoyed that joke, but this time he felt the light leaking from his smile before he even finished the sentence.

  “Oh, boy. I guess that’s not too funny today, is it?” Dennis Deane said.

  “No, but it’ll be funny again the next time I see you.”

  “Just don’t go to the movies in Chicago and you’ll be all right.”

  “Did you hear that Dennis Deane got promoted?” Ellie Something asked. “He’s a doffer now.”

  “That’s great,” Jim said. “What does a doffer do?”

  Dennis Deane looked uneasily at the people crowding around them. “It’s in the spinning room,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it next time.”

  “You got a deal.”

  “I’m not going to kiss you in the continental fashion, though.”

  “I’m glad about that.”

  “I’m not going to French-kiss you, either.”

  “Dennis Deane,” said Ellie Something.

  “I’m especially glad about that.”

  Pete Hunt shouldered in front of Dennis Deane. “Say, Jim,” Pete said, “when you get to Europe, do you think you could take some pictures of the train stations?”

  Jim frowned at Pete. Not getting shot in Europe seemed to him task enough. “I don’t have a camera,” he said.