Whisper Town

by Patricia Hickman

  Jeb stepped out the distance between Fern and the tree and then studied the fresh notch he found. “Wrong tree, but you did hit one.”

  “I might be a little rusty. Hand guns are different than rifles.”

  “It’s like picking off possums in a tree hole, Miss Coulter,” said Willie.

  “Jeb’s let me shoot it a few times, Miss Coulter. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of the Dillingers and you handle the driving,” said Angel.

  “That’d be a sight to see,” said Willie.

  Angel watched through the car window as Jeb and Fern said their good-byes. Jeb kept moving a tendril of hair away from Fern’s eyes, and then hugging her. Jeb finally walked Fern around to the side of their house, out of sight of all of them and, most likely, away from Florence Bernard’s prying eyes.

  “It seems that our minister’s finally gained ground with the schoolteacher,” said Florence. She already had her knitting out and worked on it from her cramped space in the rear of Fern’s car. “Has he said anything about marriage, or can you say?”

  “I can’t say,” said Angel.

  Florence laughed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they hauled off and got married soon.”

  “Miss Coulter hasn’t said one way or another. Jeb don’t tell me anything. When he’s not with her, he’s got his head in a book.”

  “Reverend sure seems to be enamored of her. Here they come,” said Florence.

  Jeb walked Fern to her side of the automobile. He opened her door and helped her to get situated. “Angel, you take care with that pistol,” he told her.

  “It’s hidden under my seat and the safety’s on. I’m sure we won’t need it,” said Angel.

  “God forbid.” Florence never looked up from her knitting.

  Fern and Jeb made a couple of sappy comments, in Angel’s estimation, and then he closed her door.

  Fern watched him walk all the way back to the front porch. “I miss him already,” she said.

  “We got tuna fish for lunch. I’ve never been to Oklahoma,” said Angel.

  “Is it pretty this time of year where your folks live?” asked Florence.

  “Ardmore’s a lot like here, only in the summer it’s far more hot. This time of year, I’d say it’s chilly of a morning and nice in the afternoon.”

  Angel watched the parsonage disappear into the woods. She worried for Myrtle and then for Willie and Ida May. But she worried more for Jeb, who seemed lost without the help of a woman.

  Jeb drove Willie and Ida May to school. They missed the early bell, but promised they’d make up the time with their teachers. Before Ida May disappeared into the school building with her brother, Jeb noticed she wore bright red socks. He had seen Angel wearing them to bed on cold nights but never with her school dresses. Ida May must have dug them out of her sister’s things after she drove away. It was too late to make her change now, and to worry after a girl’s fashions was not on his list of things to manage.

  Myrtle slept quietly in her basket on the truck seat. With the addition of the big laundry basket in the cab, Willie and Ida May were forced to ride to school in the truck bed. They most likely would not complain over that arrangement until winter had come full-blown. By then, Jeb prayed that the mother of this baby would show herself or at least that someone would ask after her.

  Wednesday night would be the second time he brought Myrtle to prayer meeting and her third outing to Church in the Dell. He prayed she would grow on some of the women. She had a way about her, he thought, that made girls coo over her. Willie laughed at her when she seemed to have smiled for the first time and when she found her thumb. Her hair curled jet black around her face, flashing like lightning when Angel sunned with her out on the porch. She was a comely girl, if not round at the cheeks and gaining weight fast like a boy baby. She had grown on him.

  It seemed the whole day long to Jeb that he was hauling that laundry basket full of baby first one place and then another. Belinda had not shown up for the noon feeding and he had resorted to giving Myrtle a bottle, which she did not take to. Beulah saw him coming up the walk and opened the door for him after which she laughed.

  “Don’t say a word, Beulah. Just pour me up a cup of your worst.” Jeb placed the basket behind him on an empty tabletop. He took his place on a stool, glad to have his hands free. He took out a book he had tucked into the basket and used a pen to underline the phrases that jumped out at him.

  “Biscuits are fresh made,” said Beulah.

  “Give me an order then, with some of that sausage gravy.” Jeb dropped his hat on the stool next to him. He felt winded, as though he had climbed the Ouachitas.

  “I hear you’re without your good kitchen help. Shame about Fern’s daddy too.” She filled Jeb’s cup.

  “I’m not helpless, Beulah. I can manage without Angel in spite of what everyone thinks.”

  “I’ll get your biscuits,” she said.

  “Mind if I join you?” Deputy Maynard took the stool on the other side of Jeb. “I’ll venture to say you’ll be seeing a lot of Beulah over the next couple of weeks.”

  Myrtle let out a cry.

  Jeb stiffened and turned to see her flail one hand, which fell over her eye. She let out a spewing sigh and then fell back to sleep.

  “When Nebula’s away at her momma’s, I practically live here at Beulah’s.”

  The diner biscuits smelled like the fresh crispy-topped ones his grandma used to make. He reached for the jam and placed it in front of his coffee cup. “I make do.”

  “We’re having meat loaf tonight,” Beulah said through the open space from the kitchen. “Bring those children by and ol’ Beulah will see they’re fed.”

  “I guess your children told you I come by this week about that apple orchard bi’ness?” George creamed his coffee.

  “What business?”

  “They forgot, I guess. I think those banker boys from Hope went sparking down on White Oak Lake and heard some stuff. Apparently they heard some boys bragging about skinning cats down in the orchards. I didn’t want to scare your kids, but them boys was up to no good, trying to weave spells from what I hear tell. Nonsense, but it give me the willies to hear it told.”

  “Oz Mills told you?”

  “His buddy Frank Pella. He come down here sparking one of those girls from down in the holler and then dropped by the next morning to tell me what he’d heard.”

  “Sounds made up,” said Jeb. Beulah delivered the biscuits to him with a bowl of gravy.

  “Pella’s ornery, but I figured he had nothing to gain by telling tales.”

  “If Oz has anything to do with it, it could skew the story.” Jeb gave thanks over his food.

  “Excuse me.” A young man clad in a sweater and new trousers tapped Jeb on the shoulder.

  Jeb recognized him vaguely. His daddy was a railroad man who had invested in land just outside of Nazareth. “May I help you?”

  “That’s a colored baby, ain’t it?” he asked.

  “She’s with me,” said Jeb.

  “This is an eating establishment. You’d best take her out back to finish your vittles.”

  Jeb glanced at Maynard, who looked down at his hands. “That baby’s not hurting you, fellow. Why don’t you go on about your business?” He cleared his throat, hoping it would account for his heavy tone, the kind he used to use before he beat a man to a pulp.

  “Beulah, it smells in here. You want Lepinsky’s business, you best keep the trash out back.”

  Beulah came out with a puzzled look on her face. “Something wrong with somebody’s food?” she asked.

  “Lepinsky, that’s the name. I know your daddy,” said Jeb.

  “Well, you should. You worked for my daddy once. He’d not hire you now, nigger lover.”

  Jeb whirled around on the stool and jumped down onto the floor. His fingers curled, hard as baseballs.

  George grabbed him by the arm. “Calm yourself, Reverend. Wade Lepinsky, now you know Beulah keeps her place in right standing with
the townspeople. Reverend Nubey here is a Good Samaritan is all. He and I had some business to attend to and we need to finish up. You tend to what you came in here for and he’ll take the colored baby out the back way shortly.”

  “George!” Jeb shot out. Maynard’s plump hands grabbed Jeb’s. He sat back on the stool while Maynard eyed the youth into submission.

  “I’ll not eat a single thing in this place!” said Wade Lepinsky.

  “Go on, then!” Beulah shooed Lepinsky out of the diner. She apologized to Jeb and filled his cup again.

  “Things is going to heat up, Reverend,” said George. “People get funny ideas about such things and they’ll say and do things you can’t imagine. I can’t be around all the time to pull your foot out of the trap, so to speak. You got to find a home for this child.”

  “I did, George. She’s with me.”

  Florence Bernard started a song that was a round. She taught it to Angel and Fern, but they kept coming in on the wrong part of the song. “Not like that.” She laughed and demonstrated the round again.

  “I don’t think we’re ever going to get it, Florence,” said Fern.

  “How long we been driving?” asked Angel.

  “Three hours. We ought to be coming up on the state border in the next couple of hours. We can cut across the corner of Texas and drive straight into Oklahoma. I vote we ladies find a nice inn for women and stay overnight. Get a fresh start. I promised Jeb we’d do as little night driving as possible.” Fern read a road sign aloud that advertised home cooking.

  “We’ve still got plenty of food if you both want to stop along the road and have a bite to eat,” said Angel.

  “What a good idea,” said Fern. “Look at that sun setting. It looks like glass melting on those mountains. This stop will give me another chance to go over the map again too.”

  “I brought that apple pie. Let’s eat it for supper,” said Florence.

  “I like the way you think.” Angel pointed to a filling station. “We could gas up and then eat our supper beneath that tree.”

  “Apple pie supper sounds like heaven, doesn’t it?” Fern turned the wheel and parked them next to the gas pump. “Angel, open your door and ask that filling-station attendant the name of this town. But don’t tell him where we’re going. I think it’s best not to give out our destination.”

  “Fern, you’re a smart cookie,” said Florence. “I’m glad to be traveling with you.”

  Angel opened her door. The attendant looked to be about thirteen with a home-done haircut and a streak of grease across his jawline. Angel asked him the name of his town and he answered bashfully, “De Queen.”

  “About how far are we from Oklahoma?” Fern asked him.

  “You almost there now,” he said. “Next town after this is Broken Bow. But you won’t find no gas after dark. It’s good you’re filling up now.”

  Angel shut the door.

  “Ladies, we want to stop for the night in Broken Bow?” asked Fern.

  “It’ll be dark when we get there, Fern, but I’m up for it if you are,” said Florence.

  “I wonder how Jeb’s doing?” Angel asked.

  “If I know Jeb, he’ll have the whole town lined out and a potluck organized or some such goings-on,” said Fern.

  “He’s got his hands full,” said Angel. She got out of the automobile to fetch the pie. It didn’t do any good to worry, she decided. Jeb needed to learn a thing or two about what women went through to keep up a place. He was probably cooking up a pot of beans right this minute, she figured.

  “Reverend, is that you I see clambering around in the back room?” Beulah tied on a fresh apron for the evening.

  “I came in the back way so as not to bring you any more trouble.” He hefted the laundry basket through the doorway. Myrtle was screaming to high heaven. Willie and Ida May sidled in behind him.

  “Three blue plate specials?” She pulled out her pad.

  Jeb pulled up three chairs and closed the door to keep out the cold night air.

  “Did he burn supper?” Beulah whispered to Ida May.

  “Charred like something from hell,” said Ida May.

  9

  CHICKASAW PLUMS HUNG ROUND AND REDdened by the October sun, which grew hotter in Oklahoma than Arkansas, like God had turned up the burner on the Okies. A cedar waxwing cried sreee, sreee in the lilting limbs, hunting for berries and pinecones the size of blueberries.

  Fern’s Chevy coup careened around a dusty turn that followed the river.

  Angel noticed how change came into the Red River Valley as the mountain forests gave way to grassland, like the earth had torn off her skirts to run naked in the sun. They passed through places like Broken Bow and Idabel that blended from one town into another, delineated only by a hand-painted sign marking where the city limits commenced. She counted more than one abandoned automobile along the road, travelers driven by the need to leave the doldrums of the south only to be taken as far as the last tank of gas would allow.

  “I hope we find another filling station in the next town,” said Angel.

  “Stop, you’re making me nervous.” Florence had claimed the whole rear seat for herself, setting up a basket of crochet twine that spooled across her lap and fed into what looked to be a doily.

  “I’ve never left Arkansas until now. It’s different in Oklahoma. I never knew how different until now.”

  “It feels like home. You ever feel choked by going home?” Fern asked Florence.

  “I like being at home. Never was much of a gadabout.” Florence kept to her stitching.

  Angel did not know how to define home. “How you mean ‘choked’?”

  “Back in Ardmore I’m one of Frances Coulter’s children.”

  “I wouldn’t mind it,” said Angel.

  “It’s kind of a costly privilege.”

  “Home never had much meaning to me, least not until Jeb took us in. My home is wherever Willie and Ida May are, I reckon.”

  “You ought to remember that lots of youngens are going hungry nowadays,” said Florence. “Jeb’s done a good thing, taking in you and your brother and sister.”

  “My aunt Kate says she thinks my sister and her family moved into Oklahoma somewhere. What town, I don’t know.” Angel stared at a family gathered on a front porch.

  “Oklahoma’s kind of a scrubby place, isn’t it?” Florence dropped a stitch. “Maybe everyplace has turned scrubby in this godawful Depression.” When she rattled on so, her voice softened and she kept saying, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  The Chevy coup made a rattling noise. Fern floored the gas pedal. The car made one final clattering sound, then died.

  The Red River meandered around Tyler Road, trickling slowly to stretch what was left of the river beneath a bridge. Rain had been in short supply in Oklahoma. So was a good filling-station mechanic.

  “Look yonder,” said Fern. “I see someone coming down the road.”

  Jeb left Myrtle with Belinda, but felt as though he were leaving her with the influenza. Myrtle had cried from three until just before dawn. Willie escaped out the door with Ida May, choosing to walk to school instead of waiting for Jeb, whom Ida May called “the Devil hisself” since Miss Coulter had left for Oklahoma.

  By the time Jeb walked up to the front steps of the church, a number of automobiles were parked around the front as though they had been left in various states of pursuit. Jeb reached for the doorknob, but the door opened. Greta Patton held the door for Jeb. Her eyes batted and she would not look at Jeb.

  “Afternoon, Mrs. Patton,” said Jeb. “What brings you around?”

  “It’s a delegation,” was all she said.

  Inside, several women and men either stood or sat around the altar at the front of the church. Jeb took off his hat and acknowledged each one, as best he could, with a nervous smile.

  Will Honeysack stood up in the middle of the group and said, “Jeb, I was about to come and get you. I’m sorry we’re springing this so sudden.”<
br />
  “It was my fault, Reverend,” said Floyd Whittington. “I got late at the store. I was supposed to come and ask you to join us for this meeting early.”

  Jeb read the expressions of each one: Will and Freda, Arnell Ketcherside, although his wife was most likely cutting hair for Faith Bottoms at the Clip and Curl, Floyd and Evelene Whittington, and Sam and Greta Patton. “Board meeting,” he whispered.

  Jeb recalled the first time he had awakened to some of these faces the night he had taken refuge from a storm in the church.

  “I brought coffee, Reverend,” said Freda, “if you’d like a cup.”

  “Will, what’s this all about?” asked Jeb.

  “It’s not my idea, Jeb,” said Will. “Some of the church members are complaining about the Nigra baby you been keeping.”

  “She’s a real handful, I’ll admit. But no trouble to anyone else.” Jeb tossed his hat on a pew and approached the elders’ group.

  “We’re not sure about that,” said Arnell. “Folks get funny ideas about whites mixing with coloreds.”

  “You make it sound like a cake batter, Arnell. Will, you know I’ve tried to find a home for Myrtle. I can’t set her out with the garbage.”

  “It ain’t right, Reverend. They have to keep to their own kind. Word is spreading that we’re the mixed church.” Greta moved closer to her husband.

  “Isn’t that good news, Greta?” asked Jeb.

  “You’d best watch yourself, Reverend. Powerful people are watching.” Sam kept his voice low.

  “Sam, we can’t let the church be a weapon against a child. I appreciate all of you coming by today, but we still haven’t solved the problem of where Myrtle should go. Have any of you stopped to think that God laid her in our laps for a reason?”

  “God is not full of mischief,” said Evelene.

  “Can’t prove it by me. Evelene. You think this baby’s not the handiwork of the Creator? Have you looked into her eyes?”

  “Don’t use this baby to tug on our heartstrings, Reverend,” said Sam. “The last thing we need is guilt. I ain’t responsible for the whole slave trade of the Civil War.”