GodPretty in the Tobacco Field

by Kim Michele Richardson

  Sneaking behind the cabin to their small family cemetery, I stopped under dark pines to catch my breath. I spied the fresh dirt amongst the half-dozen scattered graves buried in hollow earth, and stepped carefully over to Carter’s burial spot and placed the flowers atop the loose grave dirt.

  Looking over my shoulder, shaking, I tried to collect a prayer. If Gunnar caught me, he’d kill me; if the Crocketts caught me, I’d be deader.

  I kneeled down, and breathed out, “God, if You’re in Nameless, please bring Carter to Your home. Let him be with his mama and . . . not be mean anymore.” I stumbled through strings of Psalm 23, scattering the words upward. I couldn’t help adding a plea to Him for my swift leave of Nameless.

  Overhead, a crow barked a warning. I rearranged the colorful blooms, dragged my fingers through the raw dirt, and patted softly. “For all your dreams—secrets—and prayers, Carter. I hope you have them now.”

  I dusted the clay off my dress and dashed back across the field to the foot of Stump Mountain.

  Breathless, I trudged up the hill, keeping on the narrow, balded trail and jumping across the ruts.

  At the first switchback, Ada Stump marched by, her blond hair blowing over a pale face, feet pounding the mud trail. I looked over my shoulder, and Ada peered back over hers. Stopping on the path, she struck one of her matches and flicked it my way. I stumbled over a stone, stubbing my toe, and cursed her heartily.

  “Ada Stump . . . Dammit, Ada.” I caught back up with her. “Give ’em here, or I’m going to light your tail real good.” I held out my hand.

  Ada clutched the matches to her chest. I grabbed her by the wrist and pried the matches away. “You’re gonna hurt yourself.”

  She tried to snatch them back. Then I noticed her swollen lip and black eye. A front tooth was cracked.

  I jerked her wrist and held on to her. “Who did this, Ada?”

  Ada screwed up her tiny face. “My matches . . . Mine . . . Gimme my matches,” she hissed.

  “Does it hurt? C’mon, I’m taking you home to your mama.” I tugged on her.

  “No.” She shrank. “I ain’t going back in there. I ain’t.”

  “I’m taking you home, Ada Stump.”

  “I want MY matches.” She slapped at my arm.

  “Stop—”

  “No! It’s . . . it’s too dark.”

  “Dark? What are you talking about, Ada?”

  “Matches . . . give ’em here.” She clawed while trying to wiggle out of my grip.

  “Stop it, you need to go home.”

  “The shed!” she spit. “Shed . . .”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Pa . . . he-he locks me in there—in the shed!”

  “Shed . . . You’re lying,” I said, refusing to believe, but narrowing my eyes, remembering Baby Jane’s lost words “lock me away up there . . . like Sis.”

  “Ain’t a’lying . . . ain’t.” Angry tears leaked out of her dark eyes. Then she lowered her mouth to my hand and clamped down.

  I shrieked and jerked away, shaking my wound. I dropped the matches.

  Ada scrambled to snatch them up and then lit off into the woods.

  Damn kid. “Ada Stump, you’re gonna burn down the mountain, you don’t stop,” I hollered after her, blowing on my injury.

  Chapter 15

  Little Charles sat on the porch teething on a stick, smacking his swollen gums. I climbed the steps and picked him up. Rocking him on my hip, I called out for Henny.

  Charles crinkled his smiling eyes, drooled as I held him. “Hey, you handsome devil. Yes, you.” I gently poked the baby’s chest and kissed his cheek.

  Henny walked out from around the back of the house, sullen and eyes red, nose big and crooked.

  “What are you doing up here?” she said, setting her feet onto the downward trail.

  “You okay? I’ve been worried.”

  She tossed me an icy look.

  “Gunnar sent me to tell you, you’re working the field with me today. We’re going to dust ’em.” I set Charles down and stepped off the porch.

  She shrugged.

  “I just tangled with Ada. She bit me—”

  Henny brushed past me.

  “Wait up, Henny . . . Stop . . . Ada’s hurt—”

  “I’m hurt, dammit! She pointed to her fat nose. “And she’s okay . . . just . . . just fell, is all,” she snipped.

  “Sorry, does it hurt bad?”

  “Going to all my life.”

  “Hey, are you sure about Ada, she looks—Hey, wait . . .” I reached out.

  “They found Carter.” Seeing the sight of her sad eyes, I reckoned the news about his death had reached the mountain. “I’m sorry. Guess you heard.”

  She wiped away a tear. “More than enough. Sheriff came up and told Pa he found a note beside Carter’s camp. Two hearts, and that fancy penmanship like we learnt in second grade . . . Pa lied to him and said it weren’t mine even though he knew it was ’cause he makes me write to them damn government men for him all the time.”

  “You wrote to Carter?”

  “Yeah, twice. I tacked one of ’em to the cedar post alongside your property. Wanted to tell him I was sorry I made him mad, arguing with him about seeing another girl like that . . . My fault.”

  “Oh, Henny, no—”

  “It is . . . After the sheriff left, I had me a cry. But Pa weren’t through—he whipped me for bringing the law up here snooping. Then Lena caught me wearing the pecker bone that Carter’d gave me . . . She told Pa, and he got ahold of it and I got the switch for that, too . . . ’Spect Sister was mad about her own beau not giving her one, why she told like that. See?”

  Henny slipped off the shoulder of her dress and showed me angry red slashes, then jerked the sleeve back up. “Whipped me good this time, Roo. He’s gonna kill me one day.”

  I inspected the marks, rested my head next to hers. “We need to get you some salve.” I clenched my hand and felt it throb a little. “Me too.”

  She rubbed her damp eyes. “Just wished Carter’d gotten my second apology that I’d snuck down to the fencepost . . . I wrote it real pretty, too.”

  “C’mon, Henny, I’ll run into my house and get you some medicine.” I hated the thought of her being whipped. Her daddy taking his “talking stick” to her. Last month was little Charles. And though I’d had my own share of “talking” from Gunnar with his bitters, at least he never beat me.

  “He was the only boy around here who was nice to me. Didn’t hit much . . .” Henny sniffled. “He had himself dreams for us, he sure did . . . Was my best chance of a marriage bed . . . Ya know’d he was nice, Roo . . . remember when ya cut up your knee?”

  “Yeah.” I patted her hand, feeling sorry that was the only good she’d clung to and would always remind me of. Sorry that it was mine now, too.

  “I know’d folks think he got his due”—her jaw twitched—“but whoever lit his camp afire will get theirs.”

  “Probably fell asleep with one of those cigarettes he was always puffing on.”

  “Humph . . . The hills got its own law round here,” she said stiffly.

  I stared at her, not knowing what else to say.

  She looked behind her. “Lots of accidents round here . . . Them graves up there?”

  I glanced back. “The babies that didn’t make it,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “The big, fresh one.”

  I raised a hushing hand, not sure if I wanted to hear.

  Henny snatched it. “My cousin, Lloyd . . . ’member him?”

  “Mister Icky Sticky Lips?”

  “Uh-huh, ’member when he”—she pointed to my mouth—“tried to have his way—”

  “Weasel!”

  Her eyes flashed. “Swear to secret.”

  With a shaky finger, I laid an X across my heart once and open palm twice, locking in our secret swear.

  She swiped hers across the chest and hand, too, then quickly pressed her hand to mine, and whispered, “Ma caught him
with one of Sisters last fall.”

  “What? He came back to the mountain? . . . Oh, hell.”

  “It’s true . . . Ada. He’d done it to her, too.”

  “Lordy-jones—Ada? But she’s only ten—”

  “She was nine and ain’t sayin’ much more, but he got his trial of sorts this spring when someone spotted him near town . . . Law of the hills runs hard here in Nameless.”

  “I know.” I whistled low, knowing more than I wanted, the thought of him buried up there weakening my knees.

  “Got his due.” She tightened her jaw.

  “I sure hope Ada’s okay, she looked pretty busted up.”

  “Humph. Pa’s gonna bust her good if she don’t stop bed-wettin’ everything.”

  “Huh?”

  “Started it this past winter. We’d wake up with our pallets soaked. Sit down in a chair filled with her puddles . . . A few months back Pa took to locking her in the woodshed every night. Now she’s stealin’ matches and stuff. Brat.”

  “Poor Ada.”

  Henny rolled her eyes. “Dead Ada if she don’t stop . . . Pa’s gonna kill her if Ma don’t do it first.”

  “Your daddy’s beating her, locking her in that dark shed every night . . . Ain’t right, Henny.” I shivered.

  “Better than sleeping in her piss,” she nipped. “And me or Ma always let her out in the mornings.”

  “Damn Lloyd.” I thought of little Ada suffering, clenched a fist.

  “Ain’t sayin’ no more,” Henny said again, and buttoned her lip. “And you better not either.” Her eyes warned.

  Who would I tell? Gunnar, who hated the Stumps? Rose, who couldn’t stop Gunnar from giving me the bitters? Or Rainey, who couldn’t stop the townsfolk hating his skin? Deep down I knew this land claimed its sinners and held tight its secrets.

  I answered with an extra X across my chest and trembling palm.

  We walked a few minutes in thought, my curses to the town hanging like low, leaky clouds. I kept looking over my shoulder expecting the ghost of Lloyd to appear, expecting Carter to come flying out of the woods. Then, wanting to burn the thoughts from my mind, turn the talk around the bend, three wide bends, I said, “I’ll let you pick up any torn leaves today while I take the tobacco to Paris.”

  “Really? I hate going to Paris.”

  “Huh-uh, sure will.” Henny’d break out in hives every time we had to “go to Paris”—dust the rows with the Paris green poison. Gunnar would have us mix up the green powdery insecticide with some road dust or flour and pour it into a coffee can that had been punctured on the bottom. We’d shake the poison out over the tobacco to get rid of the worms, flea beetles, and other tiny critters that were hurting the crop. By the time we’d finish, we looked like green leprechauns—our hair, eyebrows, everything coated.

  “Sure ya don’t mind going to Paris?” she asked.

  “Nah, the rain’s dropped some leaves and you can clean ’em up. I know how much Paris makes you sick. And Rainey took the ice pick to the coffee cans before he left for the city, but maybe he’ll get back soon and help. Least everything’s ready.” Anything to make Henny perk up. “Maybe we won’t find any hornworms. . . .”

  She snorted at that, knowing how much I feared them and how I’d holler for Rainey to get them.

  “Ya miss him,” she said.

  My face heated. “He’s been gone five days . . . I’m worried that he found trouble. Same as his mama. That’s all.”

  “Knows better. Your eyes say different. Says ya got the woman worry in ’em. Has he kissed ya yet? Ya know, the real kissing, not the clowning around kid kissing.”

  “You should do Granny Magic.... And, yeah, five whole days is a long time missing him—we’re practically family.”

  Her mood lightened. “I ain’t never kissed a darkie.” She wiggled her brow and bumped my shoulder. “I bet it’s like kissing the night air, sweet and dark.”

  “Black, Henny,” I scolded. “You know he doesn’t like being called those other names. And, yeah, that boy’s been nibbling at my feelings a lot lately,” I admitted.

  “You better latch your lips on to his ’fore it’s too late, Roo, and he’s gone for good. Just don’t let anyone catch ya”—she snapped her head toward the hill—“or it could get bad . . . real bad. You’re gonna have to be really careful, Roo.”

  “Let’s get down to the rows.” I picked up my pace, wanting to get off the mountain.

  We let the uneasy silence take hold to the bottom and for most of the day, leaving the mountain’s sins scattered on the mud-caked path.

  Gunnar let me and Henny take a longer dinner break to clean up. I spent most of it over by the well scrubbing the Paris poison off me with Lava soap, while Henny ate the cheese sandwich I’d made her. After I washed, I ate mine, then slipped into the house and put on a fresh dress to wear back to the rows. I helped Henny look for more tattered leaves to pluck. We tossed those into the trash with the ones the rain beat off. Every so often I would stare off toward Rainey’s place.

  Nearing suppertime, I saw him, and tapped Henny’s shoulder, telling her to go on home.

  She snapped up her head, followed my gaze. “Wouldn’t mind going home to that.”

  I took off, feet pounding Royal land to Ford’s cabin, my dress pasted to my thighs. My heart hammering out promises, forgetting and forgiving the darkness of recent days.

  Rainey leaned against a pretty teal-colored automobile that had somewhere, sometime, and somehow lost its whole entire lid.

  I slowed a second to gape. Rainey opened his arms and before I could stop myself, I fell into them like when we were littler and hadn’t seen each other in a day, knocking off his hat, laughing as he spun us around. When he put me down, I noticed the Oertels ’92 beer bottle in his fist, and in each of the hands of the two folks sitting in the front seat of the car behind him.

  “RubyLyn,” he said, picking up his hat, smiling broadly, “this is Dena and Donny Justice from over in Harlan.” He patted his brown tie Gunnar had sent with him. “Their daddy leases out land to the big coal company down there.”

  Rainey put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him and the automobile. “Gave me a fine ride in this here fine Pontiac. . . convertible! I missed you, Roo,” he breathed into my ear.

  I got hold of my senses. Alarmed, I tried to push him off, but he had a strong grip on me. “Careful,” I said quietly over his shoulder.

  “S’ok, they told me they’re friendly with niggers,” he whispered back.

  Nigger? I raised a brow at his slip of a word I knew he hated.

  “Hi, RubyLyn,” the Justices chimed, and raised their beers in one hand and wiggled a wave in the other. On a creamy white bench in the backseat lay a half-dozen empty beer bottles.

  “I met him at the big hospital.” Rainey pointed his beer to the driver, a smart dressed man sporting a blue striped white vest and long bushed sideburns. “Donny, here, was getting his army physical, too, and his sister tagged along to shop in Louisville.”

  Donny opened the car door and climbed out clutching a beer. Rainey jutted out his chin, squeezed me, and said to him, “Call her Roo.”

  Donny tugged at his knee-high britches and reached for my hand. “Roo.” He shook while his red-mapped eyes snaked the length of me.

  Words buttered on my tongue and all I could do was look away. From the passenger side, Dena cracked one of those catalog smiles and adjusted a silky scarf on her head, tucking in wisps of blond hair.

  I ran my hand over my stained dress, folded my arms across my chest, and tucked one of my mud-caked shoes behind the other.

  Dena slid out of the passenger seat, her in a bright busty pink sweater with pearl buttons—and I couldn’t miss it if I tried—no slip under that short white skirt skinnied over her print-flowered undies.

  I lifted my eyes and met her cool gaze. She reminded me of Daisy in The Great Gatsby.

  “We had a swell time,” Rainey chirped, clasping me tighter to his side. “
Swell and they offered me their hospitality—their uncle’s sleeping porch while they stuck around to rest and visit relatives. Gave me a ride home in this sweet GTO . . . a great goat!” He took a gulp of beer, then let his hand fall casually to my rear.

  I shifted my feet, looked up at Rainey, and knitted my brow.

  Roo, he mouthed back. I missed you.

  I slipped out of his hold.

  Donny laughed. “Yessir, anytime, pal. You never know when I’m gonna need you to cover my freckled hide over there . . .” He looked at me, winked. “Roo, them officials at the army hospital said Rainey here was such a big, strong, country nigger, all he had to do was show up and them gooks would run.” He slapped Rainey’s back and swizzled the rest of his beer before tossing the bottle into the backseat. Then he lifted out Rainey’s brown satchel and dropped it on the grass.

  I figured Rainey must’ve left his brain on that sleeping porch to ride in an automobile with no roof and get boozed up with strangers, and being real friendly to me in front of white folks.

  I looked past those flapping folks, not sure what my eye just caught. At the edge of our property, one of the Crocketts stood beside a tree watching Ada and her brother walk down the property line. Crockett wasn’t trying to hide, but he didn’t want to be seen either. Then he caught me looking and stepped into the woods.

  I scooted farther away from Rainey and mumbled something about getting him back to the fields and picked up his traveling bag.

  Dena sidled up to Rainey, put her hand on his shirt, then puckered up her painted lips and I watched his whole mouth disappear behind her kiss. Until this second I’d never really seen the hardness of Rainey’s long arms and lean chest, the deepness of his laurel-green eyes in his coffee-brown face, his welcoming smile. Never seen anyone else notice either.

  Dena slowly leaned back, trailed a nail across his cheek, then waggled her slipless behind all the way back to the automobile.

  Rainey licked his limp lips, rubbed his chest.

  Dena settled inside the Pontiac, pulled down the visor, and dabbed a pinky at the corners of her mouth. Donny climbed in behind the wheel and they sped off, collecting mud, spraying rock and warbly yee-haws down Royal Road.