Leaving Gee's Bend

by Irene Latham

  I wanted to jump and shout hallelujah! It was like a miracle, that quilt. I never expected to see it again. But there it was blazing in the morning light.

  “It ain’t right what she’s doing,” Patrick said once he got close to me. “It ain’t right at all.” Patrick took a quick look back toward Camden Mercantile and pulled back on the reins. “Be quick, now. Hop up and hide yourself in this wagon.” He glanced toward the store and back again. “Got to keep yourself real flat. And not a peep out of you! You hear? If Mrs. Cobb finds out she’ll get rid of me for sure.”

  I knew how much Patrick needed his job. Seven children. And here he was taking a chance on me?

  Wasn’t a thing I could think of to say how grateful I was. Wasn’t no words for how I was feeling. So I just nodded. Then I gripped the lunch sack in one hand and pulled myself up with the other.

  I got myself settled under a pile of rope quick as I could. Curled myself up into a ball with my face toward the back of the wagon so I could see the road.

  “Yah,” Patrick said, and the horses started walking. As they moved into a trot, I felt something soft flutter down onto my head.

  All the pieces was there: the scraps of denim, the pocket from my dress, the strips I tore from Mama’s apron. Even the needle was there, tucked in at the seam just the way I’d left it. I could smell Mama and river water and Mrs. Cobb’s barn and my own sweat. I pressed it to my nose and sobbed.

  For miles wasn’t nothing to see from the back of that wagon except blue sky and empty cotton fields. Mrs. Cobb and the others was far enough behind us that it seemed like we was the only ones on the road. But I didn’t dare poke my head up.

  “You all right back there?” Patrick hollered over the noise of the wagon.

  “Yessir,” I hollered back.

  “Just passed the sign for Alberta. ’Bout halfway there now.”

  Halfway? We was already halfway there? That meant we would soon be to Rehoboth. And after Rehoboth the road ended at Gee’s Bend.

  Them horses sure was fast. Not as fast as Mrs. Cobb’s motorcar, but not slow like Delilah neither. Dear Lord, would I be glad to see Delilah.

  I looked out the back of the wagon. I wish I’d seen the sign for Alberta. Was it white like the sign for Camden? Now I might never know. Once I got back to Gee’s Bend, I didn’t have no plans to ever leave again.

  I bunched the quilt top and put it under my head. It helped soften the bumps, but I still felt like I’d been run over with the plow. Wasn’t a part of my body that didn’t ache from being bounced around in that wagon. But each roll of the wagon wheel, each bump and jolt, was bringing me closer to home. I could tell by the way the pine trees along the road was greener than they was before, the sky more blue. I sucked in the fresh-smelling air, and I knew we was getting close.

  I kept a tight grip on the lunch sack. I pressed it against my chest so I could feel each of them medicine bottles. They was there, safe and firm.

  Please, Lord. Let me get there in time.

  As the cotton fields turned to cornfields, I saw a flash of yellow in the ditch. Yellow like the yellow on Etta Mae’s dress.

  I real quick jerked my head up. “Etta Mae!” I said as the wagon kept moving away from her. Could it be?

  As I pushed the rope off and got to my knees, the flash of yellow moved into the road. Something else moved with it.

  I squinted my eye and looked hard as I could through the dust the horses and wagon was kicking up.

  Not something, somebody.

  “Stop the wagon, Patrick! We got to go back!”

  “Ho!” Patrick called to the horses. “What’s that, Ludelphia?”

  “Look!” I pointed to where Etta Mae and Ruben was running toward us.

  I couldn’t keep from grinning. They had come after me. Etta Mae the witch and Ruben, who thought Gee’s Bend was the best place ever. They was worried and had come to fetch me.

  “Hurry!” I called to ’em. “Mrs. Cobb is on her way. We got to hurry.”

  As Ruben and Etta Mae scrambled into the back of the wagon, I told ’em about Mrs. Cobb. “She said we got to pay. That everybody in Gee’s Bend got to make good on our debts.”

  Ruben looked at me hard. “Pay our debts with what?”

  I didn’t have no answer. But I sure had questions. “Ruben, you got to tell me about Mama. Is she still coughing blood?”

  I held my breath for his answer, but it didn’t come before Patrick started hollering. “Get low!” he said. Then he slapped the reins and the horses moved into a gallop.

  “What’s he going on about?” Etta Mae said, her face just inches from mine.

  “He’s talking about me. No telling what Mrs. Cobb might do if she knew he was carrying me in this wagon.”

  A light came into Etta Mae’s dark eyes. “She think you a witch too?”

  I nodded.

  “Mercy, Ludelphia, I’m sorry to hear it! If baby Sarah hadn’t died . . . I swear I didn’t do nothing to make it happen. She just stopped breathing. Wasn’t nothing I could do.”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with neither one of you,” Ruben said. “Look, now. We got bigger things to worry about. You see?”

  On the road behind us was a small cloud of dust that was getting bigger every second. Mrs. Cobb and the others was right behind us now.

  Wasn’t no talking the rest of the way to Gee’s Bend. I still didn’t have no idea how Mama was doing. And there was so much I wanted to tell ’em. Like about the medicine bottles and the quilt I was making for Mama. And the Coke and the armadillo and the motorcar.

  I had more questions too. Like, what made ’em both come after me? Was Daddy mad about me leaving? What did he say when Ruben told him I’d run off? But mostly I just wanted to know about Mama. I needed to know she was okay.

  Then my mind jumped to the very worst thing. What if the reason they came after me was because Mama didn’t make it? What if this very minute, Mama was dead?

  “Ruben,” I said.

  His eyes got small and he put his finger to his lips. When I peeked through the back of the wagon I could see why. There was three horsemen just a few feet behind our wagon.

  In less than a minute, they was past us. Wasn’t much longer after that when the wagon began to slow. I could tell by the trees along the road that we was coming up on the church.

  Dear Lord, don’t let ’em see us. Help us get ourselves out of this wagon with no more trouble from Mrs. Cobb.

  “Ho!” Patrick shouted as he pulled the horses up next to the front steps of Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. My heart raced at the sight of them steps. The part that I could see through the slats in the wagon looked just like I remembered ’em.

  I wanted to leap right out of that wagon. I wanted my feet on that ground. But Ruben’s hand on my arm stopped me. We had to wait for just the right time so we could get out without nobody knowing.

  I curled my fingers around the lunch sack. Wasn’t no words for how bad I wanted to get out of that wagon. But we was surrounded on all sides by horsemen and wagons. Wasn’t the right time. Not yet.

  “Mrs. Cobb,” Ruben mouthed, then jerked his head to the right. She was passing right beside us! I held my breath till I couldn’t see her wagon no more. After a few seconds, she started shouting out instructions, and judging by the sound of her voice, she was a ways in front of our wagon. I imagined her with her ledger in one hand and shotgun in the other, and I knew now was the time. The sooner the better.

  I wiggled my hips out from under the pile of rope and eased myself out of the wagon. As Mrs. Cobb kept on with her instructions, Etta Mae and Ruben began to follow.

  After all that bumping around in the wagon it was like my mind was all scrambled up and I didn’t trust my legs. I balled the quilt top in my fist and dropped down to my hands and knees. It wasn’t easy to crawl with the quilt top in one hand and that little sack in the other, but I did it. Then I hid myself in a patch of holly bushes that grew right alongside the road. When I looked back, Ett
a Mae and Ruben was right behind me. Wasn’t long before the three of us disappeared into the woods.

  As soon as we was far enough from the wagons, Ruben pulled us up short. “Here’s what we got to do. Split up. That way we can warn more folks about what’s about to happen.”

  “How much time do we have?” Etta Mae said.

  “Looks like Mrs. Cobb’s planning to go cabin to cabin,” Ruben said, looking at me. “Which means it might take a little while for her to get all the way to ours.”

  “But what if they split up too?” I said. “There’s so many of ’em, and if they split up the same way we do, then it won’t take ’em long at all.”

  Ruben held out a hand to each of us, and me and Etta Mae both grabbed hold. “All right then,” Ruben said. “Etta Mae, you head toward the swamp, I’ll go toward the fields. And, Lu, you start with Aunt Doshie and head toward home. Then the three of us, we’ll meet up there.”

  It made my insides warm the way Ruben took charge like that. It made me feel safe, like nothing else bad could happen. “See you at home,” I said, squeezing his hand. Then we was off, each of us running in different directions.

  I stopped when I got to Aunt Doshie’s front porch steps. “Aunt Doshie, Mrs. Cobb’s come to collect on all the debts!”

  “Mrs. Cobb?” she said, coming to the door with her long braid swaying and her mouth hanging open. “Here in Gee’s Bend?”

  “Best hide what you can.” I made sure to look her in the eye so she’d have less to gossip about later. “She’s got wagons and men. Said she’s gonna take everything we got.”

  I took off running, my feet falling sure and steady on that orange dirt footpath I’d been running on my whole life. I held tight to my quilting things and kept the lunch sack pressed against my chest.

  Each cabin I came to, I shouted out a warning as I passed. But I didn’t stop running. I had to get home. I had to see Mama. I had to know she was alive.

  Falling

  NEWS SPREAD DOWN THE ROW OF CABINS FASTER than I could run. I reckon they heard me shouting, then took to telling one another themselves.

  As I passed through the Pettways’ yard into mine, one of the hogs squealed and rushed toward me. I gripped the lunch sack tight and lifted my arms to scare it back.

  “Stupid hog,” Mr. Pettway said, chasing it with a pitchfork. “It don’t know it’s better off in them woods.”

  I hadn’t thought about hiding the animals. But I reckon Mrs. Cobb could say they was hers too. Now she’d have to catch ’em if she wanted to carry ’em away.

  While Mr. Pettway herded the hogs, Mrs. Pettway dragged the ax in one hand and a hoe in the other. Looked like she was taking ’em to the outhouse.

  “Where’s Etta Mae?” she said.

  I started running again. “She’s on her way.”

  I wanted to tell Mrs. Pettway wasn’t nothing to them rumors about Etta Mae being a witch. I wanted to tell her it was just bad luck. Wasn’t no reason to worry. But I didn’t have time to talk.

  “Daddy!” I called soon as I saw him. He was digging in the dirt with his hands, and beside the hole was four jars of soup from the barn.

  He put his hand on one knee and began to push himself up. “Hallelujah!”

  “Don’t stop!” I said. “Mrs. Cobb is on her way!”

  I ran past the woodpile, past the clothesline where Mama’s quilt still hung on the line. I ran past Delilah, who started braying soon as she saw me.

  I grinned. Good old Delilah. I’d give her ears a good long scratch just as soon as I saw Mama.

  The cabin looked like a mansion to me. Better than Mrs. Cobb’s house, better than anything I saw in Camden. I took the steps two at a time and pushed open the door.

  It was the smell that hit me first. The shutters was closed so I couldn’t see too good, and the stench nearly knocked me over. It was worse than the outhouse on a steamy August day. I covered my nose and mouth with one hand and held on to the lunch sack with the other. Had to swallow hard to keep from gagging.

  “Mama?” I lifted my head and breathed through my mouth.

  No answer.

  I took two steps toward the bed. She was buried under a pile of quilts, so I couldn’t see her face.

  “Mama? It’s Ludelphia.”

  “Lu?” she said, her voice raw as she shifted in the bed.

  I forgot about the smell as I moved the quilts away from her face.

  Oh, Mama!

  Her eyes wasn’t stuck together no more, but they was red and swollen. And her hair was matted in places, like it ain’t been cleaned good. She looked worse than I had ever seen her. But she was talking, and she knew who I was.

  When I touched my fingers to her blistered lips, she let out an awful moan. I backed away from her without even knowing it. The sounds she was making wasn’t people sounds, they was the sounds of a dying animal.

  “I brought you some medicine, Mama.” I held out the lunch sack like a basket of berries and began to pull the bottles out. “Went all the way across the river to fetch it for you.”

  The second bottle was slippery in my fingers. I fumbled around till the quilt top fell to the floor. When I bent to pick it up my head got to swirling. I reckon on account of the awful smell and finally seeing Mama again after all that running. Plus I ain’t even had a bite of that biscuit and ham Mrs. Nelson packed for me.

  My knees began to wobble, and the weight of my head seemed to pull me down.

  I was falling. Falling so slowly I felt every inch of air as I passed through it. So slowly it was like being inside a dream.

  My elbows hit first. Then the bottles. Glass shattered everywhere, spraying clear liquid across the floor and onto Mama. Little pieces of glass dug into my skin, and I could feel blood coming out of the tiny cuts.

  The morphine Mrs. Nelson had been so kind to give me found the cracks in the floorboards and folds of the quilt and disappeared.

  “No!” I cried. “No!” The medicine in them bottles was my last hope. And now it was gone, all gone.

  It was like my muscles was locked up. I couldn’t move from the spot on the cabin floor where I was sprawled out. I lay there with my head buried in my arms wishing I could cry. But it was like my eyes was locked up too. The tears wouldn’t come.

  Wasn’t no way around it. I had failed. Mrs. Cobb might as well have shot me instead of that armadillo, for all the good I’d done.

  Dear Lord. Mama always said every quilt tells a story. But I didn’t want this story. This was not the one I picked out.

  “Ludelphia? You okay?” It was Etta Mae. I hadn’t even heard her come in.

  I wanted to tell her about the medicine, but my tongue felt thick in my mouth. Whatever words I’d thought of before was trapped inside with all them tears.

  I stayed on the floor. Mama was still moaning, and there was shouts coming from outside.

  Without a sound, Ruben stepped into the cabin. “Mrs. Cobb’s pulling up to the Pettways! And she’s swinging around a shotgun.”

  Dear Lord, the shotgun!

  As I got my feet up under me, Mrs. Pettway started screaming from out in the yard. “I don’t care who you are, you ain’t taking this chicken. Mr. Cobb would’ve never done us this way! You ain’t got no right to take this chicken.”

  “I got every right, Mrs. Pettway.” Mrs. Cobb’s voice sounded like it was coming from between clenched teeth.

  “You gonna have to kill me first. You hear, Mrs. Cobb? You can kill me, but you ain’t getting my chicken!”

  Ruben looked back at us, his face as worried as mine. I’d seen what Mrs. Cobb could be like when she got mad. And I wasn’t sure if what Mrs. Pettway was doing was brave or just plain dumb.

  Then Ruben slipped back toward the door. “You two stay in here with Mama,” he said. “Don’t you move from this cabin.”

  Soon as Etta Mae and me both nodded, Ruben let the door close behind him. I didn’t have no idea what he was planning to do.

  Screams kept coming from outs
ide, and the chickens scrambled beneath the floorboards of the cabin. As the hens squawked and clucked, bits of cotton and chicken feathers flew up through the slats and landed on my skin. The pieces stuck to the bloody places on my hands and arms.

  I held my arms out in front of me. I looked like something out of a nightmare. Like a ghost or something from one of Aunt Doshie’s visions. Not like a girl at all.

  “Etta Mae?” I reached between the slats for more cotton and pressed it against my skin. “Etta Mae, come close!” My head was clear now and my tongue was fine. “I need you.”

  As Etta Mae got to me, she sucked in her breath. “Mercy, Ludelphia! Gonna take some scrubbing to get you all cleaned up.”

  No, that wasn’t what I was talking about. “First we got to get dirty,” I said and wiped my bloody hands across Etta Mae’s cheeks.

  “What you doing that for?” she said, her eyes wide with alarm. Then she started to back away from me.

  “It’s the only way, Etta Mae.” I reached out again and wiped my hands down the front of her dress. When I got to the torn hem, I gave it a firm yank. The cloth split just like I knew it would. “Don’t you see? Mrs. Cobb thinks you and me is witches. So we gonna be witches.”

  As a piece of her dress fluttered to the floor, Etta Mae didn’t say a single word. Just stood there letting me do what I was gonna do. I wiped my hands on Etta Mae’s dress over and over, till it was so streaked in blood and bits of cotton and tiny feathers that it looked like she’d been rolling around with the chickens under the house. “Now you do me,” I said.

  Etta Mae squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hands into the broken glass. She scrunched up her face but she didn’t cry out. And when she brought her hands back up her palms was all bloody just like mine.

  It was like we had switched places. Now I was the one taking care of Etta Mae. And just like I said to, she wiped her blood on my cheeks and my arms and my dress. We each reached through the floorboards and grabbed up as much cotton as we could get our fingers around. Handful after handful we pressed into our skin till we didn’t look nothing like ourselves no more.

  Outside the screaming had turned to crying. Mrs. Pettway was wailing like the train I’d heard in Camden. That sound sent chills right through me.