But Jake would not move. Little T. beat on him with his fists, never thinking of leaving him. Jake only stared, and Little T. was so close he could see the flames reflected, leaping, in his eyes. He gasped again, begging, “Git!”
Jake turned and started for the door. Little T. watched him slowly sink down, feather-light, and stretch out full-length, overcome. There was something of disbelief, still, on his face.
Little T. started forward and found himself on fire. He cried out horribly, terribly, and fell on the floor and rolled, beating upon himself until his hands were torture. The flames went out but the pain, he knew, was more than he could bear. He made his way to Jake and caught his suspenders between his teeth. He put one scorched arm across his back and fitted a hand beneath his armpit; his other hand he fitted beneath Jake’s nearer armpit. Somehow, on one hip, drawing his legs up into a position of cramp, then straightening them, he dragged them both out of the room, into the next, where the air was better, and so on out the front door. Once they were on the porch, with superhuman effort he gave Jake a shove that sent him rolling off the porch. He fell the short distance to the ground, rolled a little, and was clear of the fire—at least, Little T. thought, and prayed that he was not already dead.
He sent himself the same way and rolled a short distance away from Jake. Then he lost consciousness. When he opened his eyes again, he first saw the great fire. He knew he was dead and in Hell. “Man, I’m humble,” he whispered.
Then he turned his head and saw the moon, peaceful and calm, smiling down at him. He had to go home. That was all he knew, that he had to go home.
He knew that he had been hot, very hot. But now he felt frozen. Far away, there was a dull ache to his body. He stood up and walked a few yards in complete possession of himself, then he collapsed and knew he was hurt and sick and could not walk again as he had just done. But he had to go home.
He heard in the distance a bell ringing. He dragged himself in a fashion like a snake across the cold ground. He heard screams and a great many voices in the distance. He had to go home.
“I got to go home,” he said, in almost a cry.
He dragged himself across a field prickly with dry grass. Sometimes he was in pain; sometimes he was not. Sometimes he felt as if layers of his skin were coming off. He went down a soft dust road and oh, it was soft and cool; he thanked God for it. He dragged himself in all positions on his knees, on his sides, on his elbows and using the backs of his wrists as hands. Always going home.
He saw cabins, most of them darkened now. He saw white appliances on their front porches. Then he knew the pierce of gravel and could stand it only because he knew it meant he was almost home. Then he was rolling down his own bank. He was in the bottomland. He could die safe, in his own place, with some dignity, not like he would have died if they had caught him. He had killed a man, was what he had done. Bless Jesus, his momma and daddy never had lived to know.
He knew he was dying. I suffered to come unto Thee, he whispered. Lemme walk on God’s highway, please, suh.
He crawled along wondering if he had done all this for seventy-five cents. He thought of how he had left this peaceful place only a few hours ago, never dreaming of the misery this night would turn into.
He had thought he would go into his cabin to die. But instead he pulled himself up against his tree near the creek—he could hear its peaceful night sound; he could see his cabin faintly in the moonlight. He leaned against the tree and looked about.
His end had come. He huddled to the tree, overwhelmed by darkness. He tried to think of one last word, but he no longer had anything to say to this world. He thought of what he wanted to tell his daddy. “You had a fish on your line that last day when I pulled it in!”
It would tickle the old man to pieces.
Chapter Thirteen
Nothing surprised Jake any more. He had been taken away and returned; the taking away had changed him. He had left home; it would never be the same again.
His life had been so full for a while that he could not think. But now that he was away from the other place, he could remember it. He remembered faces, voices, names. And he remembered his bed, for all he had come to want to do was lie on it. Then only, when sleep came, or night, could he find the silence that was him. Then he would remember home and know that was where he belonged.
Now he was home, and it was not the same.
In the other place he had missed his road and his trees and his house, the coo of the pigeons nesting in the eaves. But now that he had come back to them they did not seem the same.
In the other place he had remembered town, and it was a mixture of memories, but the most vivid was as the place where he had had to run and run and run, though gradually the reason for it had faded and was no longer clear. It was the same as when he had had to clap his hands over his ears and run breathlessly from the little boys shouting after him, beating horribly with rocks on tin pails. He knew the safe place was away from them. Sometimes now his loneliness tugged him toward town, but a stronger instinct kept him away.
He saw the stranger in his doorway without surprise. Only the fire surprised him. He had not known there could be a fire of such size. He tried to confine it to the fireplace, but it would not stay. It continued to leap around the room, touching the chairs, the bed, the walls, the floor, until finally he realized that it could touch him.
Then he turned and walked away. He could not breathe. He walked away lightly, into darkness.
Chapter Fourteen
Miss Alma, waking in the night thirsty, saw the fire. She ran straight into the road and began tolling the bell. Homer Brown, the closest, waked at the first clunk, before she even got it going good. Looking out, he called, “Alma, go get your wrapper and shoes. You’ll freeze.”
By then someone else arrived and took over the tolling. And soon the rope was given to children; grownups were needed for the bucket brigade. Long after everything that could be done for the fire had been done, and the tragedy discovered, the bell was still ringing.
Red Anderson, grimy and tired from digging a trench around the fire, leaned on his shovel and called, “For the Lord’s sake, somebody go get them kids off that rope.”
Frances Morgan said she would and went off in the middle of her mother’s telling her it was too long a climb back. But because of her condition she had lifted no buckets and done no other work and was not worn out like everyone else, except those who had been too old to do anything; and they were also too old to go back.
Because of the great distance to town all the able women had had to join this bucket brigade and, in some cases, had had to double up in order to hand on the full buckets. The fire had been at its height when discovered, and it was hopeless to save anything, and everyone soon knew it. All they wanted then was to keep it from spreading. Men, bent double, swatted at its edges with feed sacks, and others, with Red directing them, dug the trench around it, their faces as red as the fire, their eyes almost blinded.
Going back, Frances followed the remnants of the brigade. Homer had given the word to stop. “All right, all right, we’ve done all we can do.” And the order had been passed along back to town, to the pump, where the teenage boys were taking turns. Freddie Moore had been pumping when word came, and he let go with a suddenness and sank onto his haunches with a stomachache. All along the way people had dropped where they stood, in attitudes of exhaustion, and except for that might have been picnicking on the grass if it were summertime.
And they were quiet; they only sat and watched the men beating and digging. Their buckets were where they had set them down, some of them full, some of them empty; and some of them remained there a very long time, forgotten. When the owners eventually went back, of course, the water in them was skimmed with ice.
Frances made her way without speaking, and no one spoke to her. After the hubbub when the fire was newly discovered, the silence now seemed even more overwhelming. The fire was under control, and when Frances looked back, she
saw that the men beating and digging were not doing it frantically as before, but slowly and methodically, and tiredly, too. Going in a circle around the fire, they seemed to be performing some old Indian ritual, and their figures, dark as silhouettes, made grotesque, dancelike movements.
Turning, she saw Kate French, newly relieved of child, resting, her bucket beside her, and she thought, It’s too soon for her to have been doing that.
Kate, catching her eye, motioned, and Frances went to her and bent over in the dark, and they whispered as if someone were still dying. “Is he dead, for sure?” Kate said.
Frances bit her lip and nodded. Tears sprang simultaneously to both their eyes. “Pitiful,” Kate said.
When Frances went on, she wondered why Kate had risked overstraining herself. Not long ago she had been the one dead set, more than anyone else, that Jake must be sent away. Those who had fought the fire had not known for some time that Jake was dead; and there had been plenty of people just to keep the fire from spreading. It was for Jake that Kate had worked and not from a sense of guilt either. There was a finality to her pronouncement: “Pitiful.” That was all the thinking about it she and most of the townspeople would ever do. Frances knew that for sure. That was just the way folks were, take ’em or leave ’em. If she had not felt so uncertain of her own character, she would certainly want to leave them alone. But with all her own deeper suffering over Jake, had she helped him any?
When she reached the bell shed, several little girls stood in a corner howling; they had not had a turn. All the little boys, swinging and yelling like Tarzan, possessed the rope at once. Rescuing it, Frances gave each little girl a turn, then sent everybody where he was expected: home or to the fire.
Homer, Buck French and several other men passed her now, loaded down with dark-looking bundles; they were blankets and blanket rolls, and she thought she saw the glinting aluminum legs of a folding cot. Two or three men would have to spend the night near the fire; the other blankets were for Jake to be carried away in.
Her mother had found him shortly after everyone had begun to fight the fire. When Frances arrived, her mother was cradling his head in her lap. She had looked up, her face full of tears, and said, “Look. He appears to be smiling.”
“Oh, blessed,” little Miss Hattie had said, huddling near Miss Loma and also crying.
And Frances remembered now that Miss Ruth Edna had been there, too. In body, she thought; no telling where her mind is. I guess she’s lucky. She doesn’t have sense enough left to have to think about her guilt, like Frank and me.
In the midst of the night’s work, she had caught Frank’s eyes on her. By then everyone knew of Jake’s death, and looking at her, Frank’s eyes had held a startled, turned-inward look; probably like the one in her own, she had thought, and her bitterness toward him had lessened a little.
Returning to the fire, she saw two figures struggling back up the hill, the bulky bundle of blanket between them swinging slightly. On the farthest reaches of the fire, people talked in whispers about where they were going. Some said to the church; others said to Brother Patrick’s back room.
Billy was slumped on the ground exhausted, and she sat next to him, unnecessarily close, held his arm and whispered, “If it’s a boy, let’s name him after Jake.”
He turned and looked at her. His face was streaked with dirt and in the fire’s shadows appeared deeply lined and old. Ashes, settling on his hair, had turned it white. Startled, Frances felt her own youth.
“You don’t want to do that,” he said, his voice dry and wise. “You’re upset and emotional.”
She said, after a moment, “I guess you’re right.” She knew all people would remember was that she had named her child after an idiot.
His hand closed over hers and held it hard for what seemed like the first time. Her mother came by, deeply tired, Miss Hattie trailing behind. Despite her grief, Miss Loma’s face brightened knowingly when she saw Frances and Billy together. She put her hand lightly on Frances’ head in passing, not wanting to talk, saying all that was necessary.
“I’ll tend store tomorrow, Mama,” Frances called, her voice like a thin tinkle in the great dark starry night.
“We’ll see,” Miss Loma said. She stopped and turned around. “You need your rest too.”
Frances was looking at the sky when her mother spoke, and she smiled as if someone were looking back at her. She thought of something she had learned long ago when a visiting Sunday-school superintendent had questioned her about the day’s lesson, a lesson she had not prepared. “What is God, Frances?” he had said, while the teachers and children listened. She had been wearing long white wool socks, and as she broke into perspiration, her legs began to itch violently. Then suddenly, like a miracle, the page over which she had only run her eye appeared before her. Clear as day, the question and answer stood out. “God is love,” she had said.
Billy said, “You’ll get cold sitting here.” They stood up.
Miss Loma said, “Hattie, where’s Ruth Edna?”
Miss Hattie said, “Cotter’s got her.”
Frances saw them trudging up through the dark together, Mr. May leading Miss Ruth Edna by the hand.
“I declare, I’ll tell you one thing,” Miss Loma said. “That man’s taken hold. Two-three months ago, I thought he wasn’t long for this world. Now he’s like a well man.”
“Well, you know what they say,” Miss Hattie said. “Folks do what they have to.”
They were walking back through the dark now too, Frances and Billy after the two women. They came to the bottom of the hill and began to climb.
Miss Loma said, “If we don’t make it, you-all give us a push from the rear.”
Miss Hattie scurried forward and said in quick whispers, “Loma, Loma, hush.”
“Oh now, Hattie,” Miss Loma said. “Billy don’t think nothing about us old women.”
They all laughed but Hattie, then were abruptly silent, feeling the laughter unseemly when they thought of the night’s events.
They reached the main road just as Wilroy and Mary Margaret came up by another path, struggling under a load of extra blankets. Billy hurried to help them. He took those Mary Margaret was carrying, and she said, “Billy, I don’t know who all those belong to. I reckon we’ll just take them home, and folks can come claim ’em tomorrow. Or they can go squat.”
“Why Ma’ Margaret,” Miss Hattie said, having never heard Mary Margaret speak in anger before.
“Oh, don’t Mary Margaret me. Don’t Mary Margaret me. Anybody in this town, ever again. Except you, Loma,” she called over her shoulder. She went off down the road crying audibly.
Wilroy looked at them. “Maybe I ought to apologize for her, but I guess I’m not.”
“Oh, nobody has to be apologized to,” Miss Loma said. “Everybody’s upset tonight.”
“It’s not just tonight. She said ‘ever again.’ She meant it. We’d already talked about it. We just don’t feel the same about this town anymore.”
“Oh, Wilroy. Are you going to move away?” Miss Hattie said.
“No ma’m. That’s the dickens. We can’t pick up from where we’ve lived all our lives now. But the way Miss Mary Margaret and me figure, there’s two factions in this town from now on. There’s us, and there’s the majority of the other folks.”
No one said anything. He said, “Well, Loma, we better get some sleep. All the arranging will be up to us tomorrow.”
She sighed. “I’m sure of that.”
“I got to go. Good night all,” Miss Hattie said.
Everyone said good night. “You want Billy to walk you home, Miss Hattie?” Frances said.
“Lord, no. I been walking home by myself over thirty years, and nothing’s gotten me yet. Sometimes I wish something would.” The little figure disappeared into the dark.
One by one lights had gone off in all the houses; the road was clear of people.
“Here. This boy and I better get on so he can get back and get some
sleep,” Wilroy said.
“Go on to bed, hon,” Billy said. “I’ll be right back.” He leaned over the blankets in his arms and kissed Frances lightly on the forehead.
“Loma, you come on. We’ll drop you off,” Wilroy said.
Miss Loma kissed Frances and went off with the two men. “Oh yes,” she said. “On top of everything else, the town’ll be running over with folks tomorrow. I’ll have to open the store.”
But it was noon before town was crowded. It took that long for people to hear about the fire. The women who had been there got their children off to school in the morning and went back to sleep. Only the men who absolutely had to went to work, and for the first time since it had been her job, Miss Alma opened the post office late.
Hoyt Springfield was credited with spreading the word. He had a morning appointment in Coldwater and on the way there stopped and told some people picking cotton. Since it was their own field, they left it. They told their neighbors and anyone else they saw on their way to town. And by noon people had come from all over. They went in droves to the site. It had been so many years since there had been a big fire anywhere around that it was outside the experience of almost everyone. And they wanted the children to see.
The Morning and the Evening Page 17
