Trouble the Water

by Frances O'Roark Dowell

  But I just couldn’t stop. That snake was crawling closer, and it was gonna slide into my ear, I just knowed it. I just had to yell and scream, and then Big Charles come right beside me and said, Sweet Jesus, forgive me, and he pull me to his side, and at first I felt all safe and good, ’cause Big Charles be the biggest one of all, and weren’t no snake gonna crawl into my ear with Big Charles near me. But then Big Charles pulled me into him so that my mouth be all covered up and I tried to suck in some air, but I couldn’t find any anywhere.

  Well, didn’t take too long for little stars to start dancing across my eyes, and then it be black as night for a long, long time, until one day I just sort of rose up outta that hole, but weren’t nobody here.

  You the first one who stayed any amount of time, Thomas always told the ghosty boy. I been thinking maybe they sent you to carry me across the river, so I can meet my folks on the other side. But you don’t say nothing. You never even asked if you could be here. Just showed up like this your place. I don’t mind to share it, but why won’t you act like you know I’m here too? Just turn around? Just say hello?

  That ghosty boy, well, it was like somebody hit him from behind whenever Thomas said that. So why wouldn’t he turn around? Why wouldn’t he just for once turn around and say hey?

  10

  Company Comes to the Woods

  Voices woke Jim up the next morning, one familiar, the other strange. The strange voice belonged to a girl. The voice he knew was Wendell’s. They were a little ways off, not in the clearing yet, still in the woods, but getting closer. Sort of felt to Jim like he had company coming, and he jumped out of bed, wishing he could straighten things up, set out some chairs.

  “I’m getting eat up alive by no-see-ums,” the girl said. “Don’t recall it being so buggy out here yesterday.”

  “Rained last night,” Wendell replied. “The rain brings out the bugs.”

  “Well, between the bites and the poison ivy, I ain’t gonna be nothing but one big itch. You think we’re headed in the right direction?”

  “What other direction is there? We already found the wrong direction yesterday.”

  King barked sharply, and the girl cried, “Look now, over there! Woods open up over there.”

  Standing at the window by the door, Jim could hear the rustling of branches being pushed aside.

  “We better make something clear right now,” Jim heard Wendell say, and the rustling stopped. “If we find the cabin, you can’t be bringing your friends over here for tea parties. It ain’t gonna be that kind of place.”

  “Who gave you the right to say what kind of place it is or it ain’t?” the girl asked. “It don’t belong to you.”

  “Don’t belong to you, either.”

  “Maybe we ought to find it before we start arguing about ownership.”

  The girl broke into the clearing first. Probably eleven or twelve, Jim thought. Skinny, her hair pulled into two short braids. “Look! It’s back there! Ain’t nothing but a falling-down thing, either.”

  Wendell emerged from the woods into the clearing. He stood for a minute, studying the cabin, nodding like he had a big plan. “Yeah, but you can see how somebody could have lived there. Might could live there still. All it needs is a few repairs.”

  “More than a few,” the girl said, and then she started trembling, like the excitement of seeing the cabin was an electric current under her skin. “We found it.”

  “You think we ought to go inside?” Wendell asked, his voice quieter now, more cautious. The girl nodded, and Wendell took the lead, even though there wasn’t much of a path to the cabin and the poison ivy vines were everywhere.

  “Don’t think just because you touch the door first that you have claim to this cabin,” the girl said, close on Wendell’s heels. “You remember that, now.”

  “You’re gonna drive me crazy. I ain’t trying to claim anything.”

  The girl harrumphed. “We’ll see what we see.”

  Jim felt suddenly embarrassed that the door to the cabin didn’t have a knob or a latch. There was a hole in it where a knob might have been, a place where maybe you’d string a rope through and pull the door to after you’d gone inside. Wendell was about to push the door in with his shoulder when the girl stopped him.

  “I ain’t sure we should do this,” she said. She stood about five feet back, still with a tremble in her voice. “We might be—well, disturbing something.”

  “Nobody lives here,” Wendell insisted. “It ain’t livable. Look at that roof. The place must flood every time it rains.”

  “I ain’t talking about people.”

  “Then what are you talking about? Squirrels?”

  The girl hesitated. “Now, don’t get me wrong, but every place has got some life in it, even if ain’t no one living there. You got to be respectful.”

  “I’ll be respectful,” Wendell promised, pushing open the door. “Cold in here. Smells like smoke.”

  Jim backed away from the window. He went and stood over by the fireplace, his back flat against the wall.

  “That fireplace is made from fieldstones,” the girl said, following Wendell inside. “That’s why it’s held up so good. Why you reckon it’s cold in here? Hot enough day outside.”

  Wendell shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not like it’s shut up tight.” He pointed to the corner, where the roof seemed to have partially collapsed without dropping all the way in. “And that window don’t have glass. You’d think the air in here would be the same as it is on the outside.”

  He walked with care across the floor, testing the planks with his weight. “Floor seems solid enough. What do you reckon that is?” Wendell pointed to the corner. “You think that’s a bed frame?”

  “Yeah, I reckon it is,” the girl said. “See how them pieces of rope is strung from one side to the other? You could pile some quilts across them, for a kind of bed.”

  She walked to the fireplace. “Look at this old black shovel. Bet it’s a hundred years old at least.” She wrapped her arms around herself and gave an exaggerated shiver. “This place sure has got a strange feel to it. Maybe that’s why your dog didn’t follow us in.”

  Wendell walked over to the door and looked out. “Come here, King! Everything’s okay, boy. Come on in and sniff around.”

  Jim peered out the door. King was giving Wendell a long look that said he wasn’t coming inside anytime soon.

  “Hey!” the girl called. “Look at this!”

  When Wendell turned around, the girl was pointing to the wall next to the door.

  “This cabin belongs to somebody named Jim,” she declared. “His name’s written right here.”

  Wendell took a look. “Yeah, it says ‘Jim,’ all right. Looks like someone carved it with some sort of knife. Fishing knife, maybe. Maybe the cabin belonged to somebody named Jim a long time ago.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. This cabin has a mysterious feel to it, you got to admit. Who knows who’s hanging around?”

  Wendell snorted. “Buncha bats hanging around, probably. A few possums. I don’t think there’s anything mysterious here.”

  “Then why won’t your dog come in? I’ll tell you why. He’s feeling the same thing I am. Like this is somebody else’s place.”

  Wendell nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re right. We ought to get out of here, in case they come back. We don’t want to be trespassers.”

  Jim smiled. He could tell from the sound of Wendell’s voice he had every plan on coming back, only the next time he was coming by himself, or maybe with some buddies. Jim liked the idea of that. Things sure would feel less lonely if a gang of boys started hanging out around here.

  “Yeah, we ought to get out of here,” the girl agreed. “And then you know what we ought to do? We ought to see if we can find something about this old Jim. I’m putting that on the top of my list of things to research.”

  “Good idea.” Wendell turned toward the door and stuck his hand outside. “I’ll admit it’s strange how cold
it is in here, and it’s strange King won’t come in. Probably a hundred things to explain that, though. Probably another old black snake curled up in the eaves. Nothing to be afraid of.”

  The girl snorted. “Nothing to be afraid of at all about an old black snake.”

  Wendell reddened, and Jim wondered why.

  “Let’s go, boy,” Wendell called to King as he stepped out of the cabin, the girl following him, and then Jim. King rose on all fours and put his nose up into the air. He let out a short bark, and another dog barked in response.

  Jim stopped. The hairs on his arms prickled, or at least that’s how it felt in his mind, like his every last nerve had gone taut.

  “Hey, old dog,” the girl called out. “We been wondering where you were.”

  An old dog, a golden retriever, made his way slowly into the clearing, turning his head this way and that, sniffing the air and letting out a whine.

  “What’s wrong?” the girl asked him. “Something don’t smell right to you? Well, it’s a strange place, I admit.”

  She reached out to touch the dog, but Wendell stopped her, saying, “Let him be. He’s onto something.”

  • • •

  The retriever had white fur around his eyes, and his movements were slow and a little unsure.

  Buddy, Jim whispered. How’d you get so old?

  • • •

  The dog’s whine grew louder, and he began to run in circles, still sniffing the air, still looking this way and that.

  “What’s he going on about?” the girl asked. “You don’t think he’s got rabies, do you?”

  “I don’t know,” Wendell said. “It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  • • •

  Jim took a few steps toward his dog. I’m right here, boy. I know you know it. You just can’t see me. Come on now, boy. Come here.

  And Buddy came right up to him, sniffed the air, and then walked away. Jim sank to the ground and put his head in his hands. He felt the hope he’d been holding on to—the hope that he’d find his family, the hope that everything could be made right—slip out of him. Even his own dog didn’t know him.

  A breath brushed against his ear. Jim looked up. Buddy stood next to him, still whining a bit, still looking around. But he was there, planted firmly on the ground.

  • • •

  Wendell whistled and said, “Come on now, pup. We’re heading back.”

  “Looks like that old dog wants to stay here,” the girl said. “Keep an eye on the place.”

  “Let him, I guess.”

  “I guess.”

  • • •

  You’re a good boy, Buddy, Jim said softly, leaning against his dog’s shoulder. He hoped against hope that Buddy could feel him.

  Buddy whined again and then stretched out on the ground. Jim scratched him between his ears and heard the old dog sigh.

  11

  Mysteries and Secrets

  Callie had a whole bunch of mysteries to solve, and she didn’t know where to start. She had secrets filling up her pockets, and she didn’t know who she should tell. That cabin was a secret, except folks in the Bottom had known about it forever. Maybe they didn’t talk about it, and maybe most of them didn’t know exactly where it was, but they knew the stories. Sometimes a preacher would preach about it. He’d lean over the pulpit and say, Our people have always been strong!

  And the ladies would wave their fans and say, Uh-huh, that’s right, and the men would nod and say, Amen, Preacher.

  The preacher’d say, Our people ran through the darkness, down to the River Jordan, and they swam across to freedom. They were strong men and strong women.

  Uh-huh, uh-huh, that’s right, amen.

  They had a desire to be free, and God made them free, and God will make you free too, if you let Him.

  A teacher might teach about it, and more than one mother had scared her children away from the woods at night by saying, Them woods haunted, that’s what I hear. Slave catcher’s ghost still roaming. Still looking for little colored children hid away in there.

  But that boy Wendell? Callie was pretty sure he didn’t know that cabin was anything more than an old, falling-down place that somebody lived in a long time ago. You could ask Wendell Crow about runaway slaves crossing the river, and Callie bet his eyes would pop right out. He might ask, Here in Kentucky? Weren’t no slaves in this part of Kentucky, he might say.

  That’s because the Bottom started out as a freeman’s settlement, Callie would have told him. Founded by free people of color. Her people. She wondered if Wendell knew about that, or if that was one more important fact that white folks let slip by them.

  That was a thing that bothered her, Callie thought as she walked along the riverbed back toward home. She felt like she knew everything there was to know about white folks. She knew all their facts and famous people. She knew where the white children went to school and where they went to church, but she doubted if hardly any of them knew where the colored school was or that there were three different churches in the Bottom and that it made a difference which one you went to. You never saw white children walking around the Bottom. It was like they lacked curiosity, Callie thought. How could you live in the same town as other people and not want to know about them?

  She climbed up the path from the river, and pretty soon she was back at Mrs. Kendall’s yard, and there the old lady was, sitting on a rickety old stool in front of her tomatoes. It sounded like she was singing. Well, Callie had heard of stranger things people did to get their gardens to grow. She wished her own garden didn’t grow so many weeds, and she wished she had something better to do than getting back to the house to finish weeding before Mama got home from work.

  Well, maybe she did have something better to do, come to think of it. Wouldn’t take her but five minutes to get to the Weekly Advance’s office, and Mr. Renfrow, who’d been the editor for over twenty years, he knew just about everything there was to know about Celeste, Kentucky. He knew about colored folks and white folks. He knew about the Indian mounds on the outskirts of town and about the Indians that built them. Once, Mr. Renfrow had come to school to tell the students about the people who had lived on this land way before anybody else—the Adena people, followed by the Hopewells, and then the Shawnee.

  If anybody in Celeste could help Callie solve her mysteries, that person was Mr. Orin Renfrow.

  The Weekly Advance office was housed on Lexington Street, right next to Shirley’s Grocery and down two spots from the Laundromat. It had a big plate-glass window with THE WEEKLY ADVANCE written in fancy letters across it, and under that the words EDITOR: ORIN P. RENFROW. When you looked through the window, you could see a counter with a little bell ringer on it, and a half-dead ficus tree dripping brown leaves all over the floor. When Callie pushed the door open, she was greeted by the sound of Mr. Renfrow’s typewriter going rat-a-tat-tat. He was the fastest typer she knew, even though he only used two fingers.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Callie,” Mr. Renfrow called, not bothering to look up. “You come to pay your bill? It’s not due until Friday.”

  Callie walked up to the counter and peered over it to Mr. Renfrow’s messy desk. “How’d you know it was me? You didn’t even lift up your eyes when I walked in.”

  “I have excellent peripheral vision. Always have. How’s your mama?”

  “She’s still pretty, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Callie had a suspicion that Mr. Renfrow was sweet on her mama, but who could blame him for that? It didn’t worry her none, seeing as her daddy was a tall and handsome man, and Mr. Renfrow was already wrinkled and gray.

  Mr. Renfrow typed a few more words, then swiveled in his chair so that he was facing Callie. “Happy to hear it. Now, little Miss Callie, how may I help you?”

  “I’m trying to figure something out,” Callie told him, “but I ain’t sure what it is. Or else it’s a bunch of things. Like this old yellow dog that’s been wandering around town. I’ve been wondering who he belongs to.
You know that dog?”

  Mr. Renfrow nodded. “I’ve seen him. Sometimes he spends the night over at Mrs. Kendall’s, but best as I can tell, he doesn’t belong to anybody.”

  “But he musta used to. And I got a hunch maybe he belonged to somebody named Jim. Maybe a long time ago. And maybe this Jim lived in the woods by the river, up from the big bend.”

  Mr. Renfrow raised an eyebrow. “And how do you know about this somebody named Jim?”

  Callie shrugged. “I hear things. You spend as much time in the front yard weeding as I do, you bound to hear folks talk as they pass by.”

  Mr. Renfrow stood up and walked over to the counter. “So you need to track down this Jim, who may or may not exist. Do you have a last name?”

  “No, no last name.” Callie leaned across the counter and lowered her voice. “Here’s what I’m thinking. I think this Jim died, and this old dog is looking for him. But I also think this Jim might have died a long time ago. ’Cause if he died last week, why, folks would know about it, right? But if he died a while back, the memory of this Jim would be thin. People probably forgot all about him.”

  “And how do you think Jim died?”

  Callie thought for a minute. “Could’ve drowned in the river, I reckon. Maybe he went for a swim by himself, which you ain’t supposed to do. You always supposed to swim with a buddy. But maybe Jim forgot, or he got so hot one afternoon he thought he’d take a little dip by himself. Thought it wouldn’t do him no harm, but he was wrong about that.”

  Mr. Renfrow nodded. “There’ve been plenty of drownings over the years, it’s true. That’s a hazard of living so close to a river. Folks go fishing when the water’s still wild in the spring; folks get drunk and decide to take a swim. Children wander down to the water and fall in. I believe that’s one reason the town council voted to build a pool, to keep children away from the river. It’s an excellent idea, which is why I’m writing an editorial about it.”